Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

A comparison. At her four month visit, she weighed in at 14.5 pounds - basically twice her birth weight. She was also in the 85% for height. And her head is only around the 70% - my doctor joked we should do a workup on her for microcephaly. (You may remember that Judah's head has always measured in the 99% - so big that we had discussed needing to do some sort of imaging to make sure things were normal, though ultimately decided it wasn't necessary.) She is really getting to a fun age - lots of laughing, smiling, cooing and interacting. She rolls over both ways now and is starting to rotate while she lays on the floor. She still doesn't sleep great, but I feel like we are finally starting to make some progress. I put her in bed earlier now and it really seems to help. Plus I'm being more diligent about getting her down for naps on a better schedule, which also is helping. We love our sweet Naomi Ruth.  

I loved this shot.  And yes, I set my daughter straight on the ground to take it. But who can resist beautiful pink petals?  

Obviously there have mostly just been photo posts on here lately. The reasons for this are numerous - mostly that being a mom of two doesn't leave much time for the longer, deeper posts I used to enjoy. There are also some developments going on around here that aren't quite ready for publication on the ole' blog that are taking up a good bit of time. Lately, though, as I look at Judah I have just been feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelming blessed to have been given such a great gift, and completely overwhelmed at the thought of raising him. I think it started as I could finally see more and more of his own unique personality. For the longest time he just seemed more like a baby, but now he is such a little person. He makes jokes, laughs at jokes, expresses his very definite opinions, tries to do things on his own, asks for help, asks questions, talks about what he sees, and asks more questions. Then he asks questions again. (I'd say we play twenty questions in the car, bu...

I forget how beautiful babies are, especially when they are sleeping.    

 

We had Judah's family and friends birthday party this past weekend. Judah really wanted a Thomas party, so I picked up all the Thomas-related decorations I could find at Walmart. As much as I hate using character-themed decorations, they made the birthday boy really, really happy.   I made a very cheap version of corn hole involving some rapidly sewn up bean bags and a cardboard box with a hole in it.       I set up the sprinkler and we played in the neighbor's sand box.       And of course there was cake.   Judah got a cool fireman costume from his cousins that was a big hit.  

Naomi made it to her first Cubs game and we got to our first baseball game of the season last weekend.     To see Judah wearing this onesie, check out this old post .    

I had a great time making the kids matching Easter outfits this year. I figure I won't be able to do it for long, so I may as well do it before Judah is old enough to pick out his own clothes. I used the geranium dress pattern again . For Judah I used this tutorial to make the suspenders and bowtie.  

I really can't believe my oldest is 3. It has gone by quickly. It has been fun to watch his language explosion and see how his little brain works. He is getting into a big question-asking phase, which while sometimes exhausting (He is fond of asking me "Mommy, what dat?" repeatedly while in the car when I really have no hope of knowing what he is pointing at) is also marvelous as he learns about the world around him. We did a little family party on Saturday night since I was on call on Sunday. He was very good at blowing out his candles. Even Naomi enjoyed it. Sunday we opened his present - a bunch of thomas trains that I bought off eBay. Judah is very into Thomas right now. We love our sweet, active three year old!

Judah has really gotten in to snapping photos with our cameras lately. He loves to use the iPhone camera as well as our SLR. I was rather impressed with these two shots he took on Easter Sunday.

The last few years I have seen lots of people talk about the Easter celebrations they have for their families. I noticed that lots of people now do easter egg hunts and easter baskets not on Easter Sunday, but maybe on the first day of spring or another day so that on Easter they can focus on what Easter is really about: Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This seemed like a great idea to me, so this year we did a fun Easter/spring party the Thursday before Easter - mostly because I started work on Friday. I had Judah's basket ready for after he woke up from his nap.   We died Easter eggs - Judah was a little nervous about getting splashed.       We had an Easter egg hunt in the front yard.     Naomi watched.   Judah enjoyed opening all the eggs and eating chocolate.