Lunch "Downtown"

Today we met Robyn and Natalie for lunch at Zupa, a soup and sandwich shop in Erie's tiny downtown area. We tried the soup of the day, called Zurek (I think that's right). It was an herbed broth with chunks of bratwurst in it, served over mashed potatoes. It was really tasty. Even Natalie tried a bit! I've been to Zupa a few times now, and it's always really good.

Natalie was the official greeter for the establishment. Everyone who came in was greeted with a two-handed, full-body wave. And of course everyone thought she was adorable - and that's because she is! Natalie will be 1 year old next month.

Caroline was awake half of the time, and asleep the other half. When she gets older she can help Natalie say hi to everyone. For now, she just blows spit bubbles.

Spring is Coming

What a fabulous day we had today! It's 70 degrees and beautiful. It would have been a crime to stay inside all day, so Caroline and I headed out. First we went to the rec center so I could take the stroller class. Caroline was awake the whole time, but was a very good girl. There was a nice older gentleman there who was talking to us and couldn't help but admire the baby. We all agreed that for her, life is good.

After class we stopped at the library to drop off some movies and pick up my book club book for next month, "The Maltese Falcon". I'm hoping to actually make it to the next book club (I've missed the last two) and the second goal would be to show up having read the book! So we'll see. I currently have it in my possession and it's only about 200 pages so there is a good chance that I'll get to read it.

Next stop, Target. Again, I was lucky that Caroline was good....given that she was awake most of the time. Then on the way home we went through the Starbucks drive thru, because unfortunately I have become addicted and so whenever I make it out of the house I treat myself. I even had an iced coffee because it was so warm outside.

So that was our day. Since then, she has eaten and played up a storm. The picture below has nothing to do with today :-) but is last night's story time. She made it through two books before she lost interest ("Big, Little" and "The Very Hungry Caterpiller"). Not bad! And speaking of books...we don't actually have that many for her. So if someone (probably the grandmothers) is ever having one of those moments where they absolutely have to buy something for their precious Caroline, I have created a wishlist for her on amazon.com that has a bunch of books we'd like for her. Go nuts. (She's currently the only Caroline J Brown in Colorado. Though it looks like this link will take you there too: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=3QFY4IDWI0LZL) I'd also like to try to do the baby sign language with her when she gets a bit older, so if someone has a book/video they've used that they liked, let me know. :-)

Ok, it's dinner time for Caroline -

2 months old...

Caroline is two months old today. She keeps getting bigger and stronger, and increasing her vocabulary of baby sounds. This Friday she has her 2 month appointment with her doctor. She's got to get quite a few shots, so hopefully it won't bother her much.

Yesterday our friends Audra and Peter came by to hang out for the afternoon. Their little boy, Alex, is 4 months old. We have this cute picture of them holding hands. Aw, their first "date". haha... Luckily there was parental supervision, because after all, he's twice her age! :-) Talk about robbing the cradle...

Holy Tumbleweeds, Batman!

It was very windy here today...so windy that it was basically just a brown haze outside because of all of the dirt and dust blowing around. But, that didn't stop Robyn and I from taking our little ones to our very first stroller fitness class at the rec center. We weren't sure what to expect, but it was fun. We'd go again. And both Caroline and Natalie (Robyn's 11 month old) were very well behaved. We think we'll be sore tomorrow! And luckily we were able to make it to the rec center from our cars, and back, without our babies or strollers blowing to Kansas. Though when Robyn pulled out of the parking lot in front of me, she had a bunch of tumbleweeds stuck under her car. :-) The tumbleweeds were out in full force today.

What else is new with us? Caroline doesn't really do any new tricks yet...though she is holding her head up a lot better. The only other new thing is that we're in the process of switching her from breastmilk to formula. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but luckily it's going fairly well so far. She's had a few major spit-ups though, and that's pretty gross. All over me, her, and anything else nearby. Welcome to formula feeding! Ew. And formula smells horrible. But hopefully as her stomach adjusts that will happen less. (Though I'm not so sure.) The upside of this is that we can use a pacifier now whenever we want! So that's been nice. She doesn't want it all of the time, but sometimes it really helps to calm her when she's upset.

Caroline will be 8 weeks old tomorrow. Boy how my maternity leave has flown by. I've got to head back to work in 4 weeks, but right now it doesn't appear that there is any work for me to go back to. So we'll see if I end up getting laid off at some point. I hope not, but Ball is having a lot of layoffs so we'll see what happens. And even though we got our name on waiting lists for infant care last summer, right now no daycare has a spot for us when I need to go back to work. So that's another possible dilemma. There are a few possibilities that might work out though, so I'm not too worried (yet).

So that's the update on what's going on with us. Nothing too terribly exciting. I'll leave you with this video I took today. Caroline with her new friend, the pacifier....

Happy Valentine's Day

This newest video is my attempt to capture Caroline smiling and "talking". (She's now 7 weeks old.) Needless to say, she smiled and talked more when the camera was off. Go figure. But here was my most successful video of the three I took.

We'd like to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day! We don't have any special plans today - partly because Greg has to work all day. It's a bummer to work on a Saturday, but maybe Caroline and I can get some take-out sushi later on for dinner if the restaurant's not too busy. Yum.

Groundhog Day Fun

After having breakfast and hearing that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, Caroline wanted some play time. So here's her movie debut on the floor gym. It's not super exciting, but hey, what do you expect from a 6 week old? :-) She likes the floor gym though, and usually spends about 15 minutes on it before she's bored and has had enough.

As for the 6 more weeks of winter, well...I happen to have just 6 weeks of maternity leave left so I guess it'll get nice just as I have to return to work. Oh well. Not that the groundhog really predicts the weather anyway!

Sweet Caroline...

The baby is 5 weeks old today, so this post is very late in coming. I apologize! I guess I've been a little busy. :-)

Our little girl arrived on December 23rd, around 8:30am. She was 7 lb 7 oz and 18.25" long. She was born with a fair amount of dark hair and with blue eyes, though they've darkened up quite a bit already. But, we can't tell yet what color they are. It took us a day or so to decide on her name, but eventually settled on Caroline Jeanine Brown. We like it. And we like her too. She's pretty cool. :-)

Caroline had her one month appointment yesterday and she's now up to 8 lb 11 oz and 21.5" long. She's in the 70th percentile for length and 50th for weight. She's healthy and doing well so that's what we like to hear. She also got her first shot, and while she screamed her head off right afterward, I was able to calm her in just a few minutes and she was just fine after that. What a trooper!

She's changed a lot in the last month...besides getting bigger, she is now starting to smile at us and interact. She makes some cooing sounds too which is pretty cute. She likes spending time on the floor gym staring at the toys and flailing her arms in their general direction. Overall she's a really good baby and we can't complain. (A little bit more sleep would be nice though...haha)

Here are some pictures of her when she was born...

And for comparison, here are a few that were taken recently, around 4-5 weeks.

That's all I have time for right now, but I promise to try to be better about posting!