Sick Day

As I drove Aurora home today, she told me how lucky she is that she just got a weekend, and after tomorrow she'll get another weekend! Yup, our little sweetie just had two days off. She woke up feeling crummy yesterday and after about an hour at school they called Chuck (who was working from home) and told him she had a fever and had to come home. She watched movies and took naps most of the afternoon, but her fever hung on and she was still feeling sick this morning. Instead of staying home and missing work, I dropped her off at Grandma and Grandpa's house where she was greeted with hugs and promptly wrapped in a snuggie!

Apparently her fever broke and she started feeling better fairly quickly, but alas... my parents were stuck with her for 10-hours from drop-off to pick-up. I know she had a great time playing with Joey, drawing and practicing her letters and numbers, playing with my mom's old doll houses, watching TV, snuggling with Grandpa, eating everything in their house, and uhm, not taking any naps at all. I hope my folks enjoyed it, too. We're pretty lucky to have them around as back-up for situations like this, though I'm hoping we're done with cold and flu season now!

Sleeping and Reading

I had Aurora sleeping through the night early, and I'm not going to lie - there were times when I didn't know if I could do the same with Clark. His eating and sleeping seemed to get all thrown off once he started daycare, and while he still doesn't take all of his bottles - our sweet boy has become a great sleeper. He takes 2-3 naps/day and he's sleeping the same hours as Aurora, from about 8pm-6am.

That first picture was taken at around 9pm, the second about 6am. Clark certainly doesn't stay in one place anymore! He can kick the side of the crib and somehow he can turn on his mobile by himself as well, though I'm not sure he does it on purpose. Once they're both awake, the kiddos move into our bed and we snuggle for a bit. This weekend Aurora grabbed a bunch of books and started reading to Clark. I know you can't hear this very well, but I'm so proud of her - she's really doing great reading words and now sentences, and she wants to read to her little brother! So sweet.

Saturday

You already know how we've been spending our Sundays. Well, most Sundays. Not today. Today we're relaxing, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, watching a movie and recovering from what must've been the busiest (and most fun) Saturday we've had in quite some time. Here's a recap:

Nature story time at the library. Clark's getting so big!

Lunch with Bailey at Chuy's. Yum!

Decorating crowns at Adelina's princess birthday party.

The princesses posing with the "real" Cinderella. Wow.

Sharing gelato after dinner at Mandola's. Double yum!

Jill's Roaring 20's birthday party.

We didn't decorate crowns, but we played Jenga with 2x4's.

Strolling

The last few days have been beautiful, with temps reaching the 70's and a long weekend to enjoy it. Clark's getting so big that I decided to put him in a real stroller for the first time, and he loved it! We've been going on lots of nice walks through the neighborhood and he just looks around and kicks his feet. Aurora and Joey have been getting along great, so he's been coming along too.

After taking maternity leave, Thanksgiving, two weeks off from Christmas through New Years, and having Fridays off for nearly three months, it was pretty awesome to have another long weekend - but alas, those days are officially over and now it's back to work as usual 5 days/week. It's been a pretty crazy time for the Foundation, and I'm ready for things to get back to normal. Especially now that normal includes nice weather, long walks, and grandparents living down the street from us!

Sunday

Ever since my parents moved to town, we've been trying out local churches each Sunday to find one that we all like. We went to Riverbend Church on Christmas, checked out Austin Ridge Bible Church, and tried out Lake Hills. They are all really big (maybe too big), with stages and bands and some serious production value. The band at Lake Hills actually played a Beatles song!

Then we went to Westlake Hills Presbyterian. We all really liked the contemporary service last week, and this morning we tried the traditional service. We didn't enjoy it quite as much, but it's a beautiful church and we'll definitely be back.

Aurora's really been enjoying the children's activities, and today we decided to bring Clark for the first time. When we got into the baby room I was surprised to find my co-worker's daughter! What a sweet little friend for Clarkie to play with. Aurora's had friends at most of the services we've been to as well. I'm not sure if we've found the right place yet - we may continue looking - but it's been a nice way to spend our Sundays. If you live nearby and have any recommendations, we would love to hear them!

Grandma's Birthday Cake

We've been having a lot of family dinners around this table lately, but tonight's was just a little more special (and delicious!). I hope Grandma enjoyed her day!

Mama Makeover

My mom's been wanting to cut her hair for quite awhile, but figured she'd wait until after the move to get her new Austin 'do. Now that it's time for her to get a new driver's license AND this weekend is her birthday, I took the day off and took my mom to get a new style at a local salon. I wasn't sure quite how short we'd end up going, but I think it turned out great! Here's the before and after:

What a hip, happy Grandma! Aurora asked if she'd invite us to her birthday party. I'm not sure my mom's planning a bounce house party, but I'm pretty sure we'll be involved! 

Bouncing baby boy

Sometimes it feels like Clark's just a little newborn baby, and other times it seems he's getting so big so fast, I can hardly keep up. The other day, my folks came over and both exclaimed simultaneously that he'd gotten bigger! He's started rolling over and over and over, and can actually get himself all the way across the living room. Sometimes when he's on his tummy, he tucks his legs and sticks up his bottom like he wants to crawl. What!? Yesterday we took him to Presley's birthday party at Hoppin' House, and of course he wanted to bounce. He bounces in his jumperoo at daycare and Miss Rita told me that he just wants to keep bouncing even when she's holding him.

So, I wasn't surprised that he enjoyed bouncing. The surprise was how much he wanted to eat. Every time I'd try to eat food while holding him, he'd intercept it and pull it toward his mouth. I let him gum on a carrot stick, he tried a tiny piece of a cracker, and I even let him taste frosting. He couldn't get enough! Pretty soon he'll be bouncing (and eating) with the big kids.

Refusal

It seems like no matter how laid back I try to be, something always requires me to obsess and problem solve like some sort of scientific detective. Clark had nipple confusion and was refusing bottles early on, but he got over it pretty quickly once he started daycare. When he started refusing bottles again, we figured it was because he was too congested. We started using saline drops in his nose and it helped. He started refusing bottles again and I figured it might be that the nipples we were using were too slow flowing, so we bought faster flow nipples and that seemed to help. After spending 2-weeks on winter vacation with his mama, he started refusing bottles again and we figured he was just used to me and he might be teething. We changed bottles again, and well... at least he wasn't letting it upset him.

He definitely hasn't been wanting to eat at daycare mid-morning, but by afternoon he typically comes around and finishes off at least one 5 oz bottle. So, today I decided to send him to school with two 7 oz bottles instead of three 5 oz bottles and asked them to feed him every 4 hours instead of every 3 hours and... it worked! He took just about all of it. Will it work again tomorrow? Who knows. Pretty soon he'll get used to eating solid food, he'll be able to take sippy cups and he won't need bottles at all anymore. But for now, I just have to keep on problem solving until we get it right.

5-Months

This weekend our little Clarkie turns 5-months old. While it's been a few weeks since he first tried food, he's just starting to sit up in his high chair without slouching so I'm just started feeding him baby food regularly at dinnertime. So far his favorite food seems to be bananas.

He also just started sitting up in his little lounging bath seat, so we set up his new bath chair and now he can sit up in the tub with his sister!

While he does well sitting, his favorite thing to do is stand. Whenever he has a lot of energy we put him in his exersaucer and he just moves and jumps and plays. We load it up with rattles and balls that he plays with, then he throws them off until there's a perimeter of toys all around him.

He's constantly grabbing things (like Aurora's hair), and while's still taking good naps throughout the day, he's just started sleeping through the night again, which is amazing. We sure got lucky with this sweet little guy. Happy 5-months!

Health & Happiness

I'd normally say that having 11 days off with Aurora might be a bit much, but this time I think we all could've used a few more days. Last week she was sick, which wasn't so bad because she took lots of naps. This week I caught whatever she had, which wasn't so bad because Katie was here and she allowed me to take lots of naps. Katie didn't get to see much of Austin, but she sure got to spend quality time with the fam! We went to storytime at the library, made gingerbread sleighs, watched movies, and rang in the new year a bit early (uhm, 7:30pm) as Aurora and I were too tired to stay up late.

This afternoon we put away the Christmas decorations, dropped Katie at the airport, then settled in for our normal bedtime routine. I'm still not feeling well, but tomorrow it's back to work and school.

Who would've thought 2012 would bring us such a sweet baby boy and grandparents living down the street? I'm not much for resolutions, but can only hope the new year will be filled with as much joy and even better health. Happy 2013, blog readers!