October Snow

We had our first snow of the season this week. Mazie and I made snowmen in our yard while Athena was napping, and then Athena woke up and I went in to get her. When I came downstairs this was what I saw....

Oh, young love.

Happy Birthday, Ahya!

We had a birthday dinner for Ahya at Great Barb and G'G'pa's house on Tuesday. Here's a great picture of Ahya with her granddaughters!

Athena is 2 Months Old

Here are her stats: 22.75 inches long (65th percentile), 11 lbs 2 oz (56th percentile), 38 cm head circumference (23rd percentile). She's growing well and continues to be a happy, healthy baby. Out of curiosity, we checked out Mazie's 2 month blog post, and we could easily just copy and paste a lot of what we said about Mazie at this age! Like her big sister, Thena is giving us lots of smiles and is also a big fan of her mobile, as shown here:


She's also holding herself up a lot more and likes to "stand" on her strong little legs (with lots of support, of course). One difference is that we apparently got Mazie in the swimming pool pretty darn early... she had already been swimming a couple of times by 2 months. So we'll have to get Thenes in the pool soon, too. And of course, the other big difference is that Athena has a big sister to "mess on" her. So much love!



I started back to work this past week, just working 1 full day and 2 half days.... We had mixed results, with Athena refusing to take a bottle most of the time. It seems like she'll take it when she's completely happy, but when she was upset and Caleb or Ahya tried to give her the bottle it just made her mad -- so mad that nothing could calm her down and they both ended up getting in the car and bringing her to me at work. So this week I will probably do most of my work from home or from the Louisville Library while we're figuring this out. Just makes me very grateful for my flexible work schedule and the fact that I'm going to be part time for the next month or so.... I think the transition went pretty smoothly when I started my job in Madison and Caleb was home full time with Mazie, but she was 3 1/2 months old by then and I did also work from home quite a bit at the beginning. Anyway, we'll just take it one day at a time and try to make it as easy on everyone as possible... Watching how independent and grown up Mazie has become makes me appreciate this sweet time when Athena just needs her mama, so even if it's a little inconvenient at times I want to be there for her as much as I can.

Fall in Vail

Athena and I spent the last bit of my maternity leave in Vail. Caleb coached a soccer tournament up there Oct 1-2, so all 4 of us went up for that weekend, and then Caleb and Mazie went home on Sunday and Athena and I stayed up with Ty and Sara. The next weekend (10/7-10/8) I had a workshop in Vail, so on Thursday night Ahya brought Mazie back up and she (with help from Ty and Sara) entertained the kids while I workshopped. It was great to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law, and Athena got lots of quality time with her aunt and uncle. We went on a few great hikes and enjoyed the fall colors, and (of course) also enjoyed some wonderful food, with trips out to Ty's restaurant (Athena cooperated nicely, sleeping while Sara and I enjoyed our amazing meal) and Sara's restaurant (she served me, Ahya, and Mazie on Saturday night), and some awesome home cooking by the TySara team as well. Thanks for being such great hosts, guys!









More pictures and a couple of short videos...

October 2011