Photo Friday

Happy Friday! Baby Anya is one month old as of yesterday, and of course I have no idea how the month has flown by so quickly. At her well baby visit she weighed in at 10 lb 11 oz, and was 23 inches long. This is fun because they looked up Lewis’ chart and he was also 10 lb 11 oz at one month, and was 23.5 inches long. He was an inch longer at birth though so he had a head start on his height.

Our poor little girl is all covered in a ridiculously terrible case of baby acne. When the first several dots showed up on her tummy and face last week I thought “oh, baby acne, no big deal” but as more and more dots showed up we started to wonder if maybe it was some other kind of horrible rash. Her tummy, chest, back, face, and even her scalp are completely covered, and it is starting now to spread onto her arms as well. The doctor has confirmed that it is baby acne and that we can’t do much besides gentle baths with plain water or a mild soap and just wait for it to clear up on it’s own in the next few weeks. She doesn’t really seem bothered by it, but I’m not sure if we’d know she was anyway since she can’t exactly tell us or attempt to scratch her own back or anything.

Lewis is enjoying our daily walks outside and the fact that he can climb off the stroller and explore while I push Anya back and forth nearby. He’s also enjoying turning the house upside down and dumping out every toy he owns while Mommy is trapped on the couch with a constantly nursing baby and can’t come clean up the resulting messes. He is also clearly loving the color red which he is wearing in nearly all these photos.

Playing with some “Sculpty Sand” which he is really loving and has been asking for frequently.

Sparklers for the 4th of July!

I love her intense gaze whenever she’s studying someone’s face.

It’s beautiful to see how much these two already love each other. ❤

All set up for a water transfer experiment.

A beautiful mix of art and science. Lewis really enjoyed this, and I’m sure we’ll repeat it in the future with different color combinations and maybe different jar arrangements.

She’s already starting to look so big/long and losing that newborn look. Her giant cloth-diaper-butt means that she’s going to outgrow all her 0-3 month onsies ridiculously soon.

Happy 1 month baby girl!

Baby smiles make me smile. 🙂

Fun with chalk in the rain.

Photo Friday

It’s Friday again folks, so time for some photos and a quick update! We have a cold making its way through our household, so things have been a bit quiet and lazy here this week. Chris had it first but it was pretty mild and didn’t seem to affect him too much besides a bit of a cough and sore throat. I should have known something was up with Lewis when he didn’t want to go to the library Tuesday, and then complained about being outside to play despite nice weather. Wednesday morning saw him complaining of his throat hurting, and then the snot began to flow (and hasn’t stopped.) It’s rough because I know he’d feel 100 times better if he’d just blow his nose or let me clear it out with the snot sucker, but either suggestion sends him into a fit of yelling and tears which just makes his nose even worse. Instead we are left wiping the dribbles (which are announced with a squawk or a screech) every few minutes, and applying Vaseline in an attempt to cut down on the soreness from so much wiping. Then I started feeling a tingle in my throat last night, which is worse today. So, it has been lots of tea and sitting on the couch snuggling and watching movies for us this week! We’ve missed out on going out to play on some nice “warm” days, but luckily it is warming up even more this weekend and next week by which point we should all be feeling much better.

Belly photos at 26 weeks. Lewis wanted to get in on the action. (He is going to be such a sweet big brother.)

Checking out the new tent Mommy bought. Combination play thing for Lewis and sun shelter for new baby in the summer.

Warn out from a rough night and a rather unsuccessful nap in his bed, he fell asleep on Mommy for a couple of hours. ❤

Modeling his new hat and eating the rice cakes he stole from Daddy’s lunch supply stash. (It’s almost summer, right? He’ll be needing this hat in no time!)

Scraping the last bits of yumminess from the bowl after making brownies.

Experiments with water and different types of paper.

Photo Friday

Hello everyone! We still have lots of cold and snow and wind outside, but I think an end just might be creeping into sight. The temperatures this week have seemed just a teensy bit higher and we’ve managed to get outside to play a couple of times, and next weeks it looks like things will be warming up just a bit more. I’m sure we still have plenty more cold days and snow storms headed our way, but soon enough spring will arrive with melting snow, mud puddles, and eventually even some flowers poking their way up. In the mean time, Lewis is still loving the snow, except when the wind blows too cold in his face.

Starting things off right with a blurry photo. We brought Daddy to the MiSci museum last weekend to see the butterflies and other exhibits, but I forgot my camera and only took two photos on my phone while we were there.

Fun in the snow digging tunnels and making a “castle” with Daddy.

After getting introduced to baking soda and vinegar reactions with Daddy a few weeks ago, Lewis keeps asking to do “that bubbly experiment!”, so I finally got the things out for him again earlier this week. We started off very carefully adding vinegar with a pipette.

Lewis quickly realized that he got much bigger and bubblier reactions by just dumping in the whole glass of vinegar.

Once the ice cube tray was full to overflowing I told him we wouldn’t add any more ingredients, so he started transferring everything to the cookie sheet instead. He started by pouring all the vinegar in, then carefully scooped the “sludge” as he called it and dribbled it into the pan as well. Fun!

Our newest, and messiest ever, sensory bin material: shredded paper. My mess catcher sheet proved absolutely useless and there were bits of paper covering every bit of living room carpet and also spread into every other room of the house. We got to do a fun activity called “vacuuming” once he was done playing.

Immediately following clean-up of the paper disaster, Lewis told me he needed a squiggly line path on the carpet going all the way to the other room. We usually use washi tape or masking tape for this, but discovered that yarn actually works very well and can more easily reach long distances through the house. He had fun driving his car, running, and chasing Mommy and Daddy on his zig-zag path.

Lewis’ first sewing project! He saw me use my sewing machine yesterday and this morning was pretending to use a toy barn as his own sewing machine, so I got out some plastic canvas and yarn needles and showed him how he could really do some stitching of his own.

Photo …. Sunday!

Well, I’ve missed posting on Friday again. I think that is something like three weeks in a row that I have missed, so I’d better play a little catch-up! Not sure what is up with me and Fridays, it always seems to be something different that makes me miss out on posting. This week I sat down to do it a bit late and Lewis woke up a bit early and so it didn’t end up happening. Another week I just completely forgot that it was Friday and the thought of a Photo Friday post didn’t cross my mind until a few days later. And of course there are the days where I am just worn out and would rather have a nap! I am starting to feel a bit more energy though and have been napping less often and managing to feel a bit more productive. (Although I’m sure soon enough my belly will start ballooning and I will once again be feeling exhausted….)

We’ve been having lots of weather that is cold, snowy, and windy. The snow this year is deeper than I’ve ever seen it in this area, and it seems to keep coming down. We make it outside to play a few days each week, but most of our time has been spent cooped up indoors. We’ve been keeping busy with lots of art projects, sensory play, hide-and-seek, and indoor chasing games. We’ve also enjoyed some Valentine activities this past week, including a valentine sensory bin, valentine bath with red bath water, and baking some heart shaped (and airplane shaped and cat shaped) sugar cookies, then decorating them with pink icing and red sugar. So…. here are the photos I know you all have been waiting for!

Finger paints on cardboard – a full body painting experience!

I shortened the handle on the carpet sweeper so Lewis could clean up his own mess after playing with rice in the sensory bin. He loves it!

More painting, this time with watercolors.

Baking soda and vinegar experiments with Daddy!

Lewis has been practicing his photography skills, and I love finding gems like this on the camera! I should probably look into getting him a more kid-safe camera of his own.

Can anyone guess our current favorite color? He wears this pants as soon as they come through the laundry, and the shirt nearly as often.

Valentine sensory bin with dyed rice and random red, pink, and purple objects.

Another Lewis photo. Maybe I can get him to take one of my big round belly!