catch up #5: San Jose visit / playing in the park

In early October, we took a trip down to see Grandma & Grandpa, and quite unexpectedly ran into Lisa and her kids at the park.

Here's Adamen and Audrey (can you believe how big he is?!?):



Audrey enjoying the thrill of swinging:




Grandma pushing Aria on the swing:



Audrey's not too sure about the crawling tube. She tried to stand up inside it and bumped her head.



See-saw silliness:



One of my new favorite pictures - it reminds me of a goofy cartoon that my Dad used to draw when we were kids:

catch up #4: sleep?

Audrey's on-again, off-again sleep schedule continues to dominate our house, resulting in scenes like this being all too common. This is from early October, but it just as well could have been last night. I've learned that when tired enough, I can fall asleep just about anywhere, in any array of bizarre positions:



This is just one of those areas where our decision to do things a little differently makes it harder on ourselves in the short run. We just can't imagine letting her cry alone in her room though. It's not in our nature. So instead, we get up and go hold her, rock her, nurse her, whatever it takes to get her through the night. She tends to sleep in small chunks, anywhere from 1-5 hours. On very rare occasions she's made it all night without waking up at all, but they've been few and far between. An average night still has three wakeups between 10 pm and 5 am. Hosanna and I trade off as much as possible. It's strained our relationship a bit, frankly, because it's really hard to muster the energy to work together as a team when we're both bleary-eyed, grumpy, and desperate for some time off.

We stick to it though, out of the conviction that in the long run, our approach will pay dividends.

catch up #3: Aria's 4th birthday

On Aria's birthday weekend, we first had a small party with her good friends Genevieve, Annalise, and McKenzie:



Some adults were hanging around too, trying to nab some cake or something. From left: Catherine (the friends' mom), Aunt Lynn, and Nana.



The next day, the bay area crew came out, including Grandma & Grandpa, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Jason, Machen, & Adamen.

Aunt Lisa read Aria one of her new favorites, "Room on the Broom" ...



... and general silliness prevailed:





Puppet show!

catch up #2: visit from Aunt Jane & Uncle Jim

Hosanna's Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim were in our neck of the woods on September 12th, and stopped by for a quick visit. Aria dazzled them with her book skills:

catch up #1: pics from Audrey's birthday

We finally have the computer issues solved, so I'm going to do a flurry of catch-up posts to show what's been happening around here for the past three months.

To start with, here are some pics from Audrey's first birthday party, which we had September 8th at Lisa's house in Santa Cruz. Lisa graciously offered to host and make Audrey's cake.

At first, neither mom nor kid was too sure about this whole thing:



Now Audrey makes the furrowed-brow face that means she's not too sure about what you're feeding her:



Warming up to it:



Oh, it turns out cake is yummy?!?

explanation

Quick explanation of why there's been no blogging for such a long time:

Principally, it's because we're still having a problem accessing the external hard drive where our iPhoto and iTunes libraries are stored. I've been a little tired of writing lately, so without the pictures to share, I haven't found much inspiration. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Secondarily, it's because we're tired.

Lastly, it's because of Facebook.

Yeah, we should probably just blame it all on Facebook.

In honor of Audrey's first birthday:

Joy

The face of my baby Audrey, sleeping restlessly on my chest at 2 a.m. on the couch. She's a perfect angel, so divine, and so powerful.

The blissful peace of resting on Mama's lap, nursing for a long stretch while being rocked in the glider.

The discovery that she can walk just as easily as crawl. The awareness that she can climb stairs. The fearlessness on the playground. The sheer lack of restraint in the bathtub. The yearning to go everywhere and do everything NOW, and damn the consequences.

The gentle evening walks around the neighborhood, me holding her in my left arm, while she points her little fingers at everything new and asks "Da?" "Tree. Car. Bush. Mailbox. Kitty cat. Doggie."

Holding her favorite book in the car - in truth, it's plastic, so it's the only one she can't chew up - and endlessly exchanging with Mommy or Daddy or Aria: "Da?" "Hello Bee, Hello Me." "Da?" "Hello Bee, Hello Me." "Da?" "Hello Bee, Hello Me."

Her mysterious attraction to the walkway outside Trader Joe's.

Her four unique food groups: Leaves, Bristles, Rubber, and Chalk.

The sly smile as she takes every toy out of the toy box and throws them all over the room in less than ten seconds.

The giggles and squeals of sisters running through the living room, around the corner, up the hall, and careening into the kitchen; next caroming off each other into the living room, then over to the piano, where they bang out a duet of pure explosive creativity before starting the whole cycle again.

The huge smile on her face first thing in the morning when she wakes up in between her parents... no matter how groggy or grumpy they are about it.

"Helping" Daddy clean the kitchen by banging on the sink, climbing into the dishwasher, slamming cupboard doors shut over and over and over, and exploring the items in the door of the fridge.

Gleefully playing naked in the sprinkler in the back yard, not even caring as big sister keeps turning the water up higher and higher until it's spraying well up over her head.

This year has been so hard, so full of multiple challenges that we have never faced individually, as a couple, or as a family. But we've pulled together and, for the most part, met what was thrown our way. As the year winds down, and summer is on the verge of flaming out, we are full of optimism and excited about the future. And we love our baby girl like we never before imagined we could love anything.

Technical note - the hard drive containing our iPhoto library crashed, so no pictures for a while until we get that straightened out. (Yes, it was recently backed up, although we may have lost a couple months worth of stuff.)