The giggles have started. Hannah's about 8 weeks now and the smiles started about a week and a half ago. She's also making cooing and gurgling sounds as if she's got an amazing story to tell.



Last weekend Mike and I went down to Cincinnati for the annual Kiwiplan golf tournament and the kids spent the weekend in Pittsburgh with Grandma & Pop-pop. Everyone had a great time. Will had all of the toys and bikes and wagons and lawnmowers out of the garage and in the driveway. He can't get enough of playing outside.

We've got our evening routine of a walk while Will rides his bike and we can't keep up with him. We've tried to yell "stop" but he usually just keeps going. We'll need to get one of our bikes out and ride with him.

This weekend's gonna be another busy one. Aunt Barbara is in town starting Thursday for a training and will be staying with us and last night Mike said Bill is coming to town as well. It'll be a full house. I'm so excited for Aunt Barbara to meet the kids. And Bill as well. He only lives in Cincinnati but somehow haven't seen him since maybe last summer. Crazy how time flies.

Tomorrow Hannah is 6 weeks old already - crazy!! I can't believe how quickly it's gone by. Don't get me wrong, there are moments that seem to last forever....man that girl has some lungs. I should remember that we are lucky in that the crying lasts 20-30 minutes and is "easily" solved with a walk around the block or some rocking & loud shhhhhh'ing. We could have it much worse. I think the hardest part for me are the moments in the car when I can't get to her and she just screams. Usually it's 10 minutes and she cries herself to sleep, but it's a long 10 minutes of screeching.

We visited the doctor this morning as she's got a bit of a dry cough. Her lungs, nose and ears looked & sounded clear so we just get to wait it out. We were given some saline drops to use in her nose and we'll see if those help.

Last night she slept the longest. Mike got her to sleep and then we put her in her swing around 8:30 and she stayed there until almost 3 am. YEEE - HA! Mike slept downstairs on the couch next to her and plans to do the same thing tonight.

Also, still breastfeeding and that seems to be going okay. Again, nights are mostly easy; it's during the day when she goes on every 1-2 hours that it gets challenging. At least I'm awake (or the sun is out to fool me that I'm awake.)

Will is doing great. Funny and cute as can be. One of my favorite things thus far happened last night on one of our walking trips to Zagara's. We were sitting together on our bench waiting for Mike and Hannah to get through the checkout, when all of a sudden he takes his t-shirt and pulls the back of the collar up over his head, which covers the back of his head and automatically pulls his arms up a bit and shows off his belly. He start walking around all silly. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. It was HILARIOUS. As I keep saying, I pray he doesn't lose that sense of spirit. He's amazing.

School is good. He comes home every night dirty as can be from playing outside - dirty includes about 2 lbs of sand in each shoe. He's pretty picky too - if he comes home and takes his shoes off, but then wants to go back outside, it's hard going to put the shoes back in as he keeps saying/whining "sand in my shoe". Doesn't matter how much we clean the shoes out, he still says sand in my shoe. (no problem putting them back on in the morning though....I can't make sense of it???)

And he's now calling his sister "Hannah Banana Lizard".....Elizabeth has turned into Lizard. As with most things he does, it's precious.

Mike and I are good. We went to the dermatologist together last week for a mole check. Mike checked out fine - I had the pleasure of having an eraser sized mole removed from the middle of my lower back. With the removal pleasure, came multiple sutures. Again - pleasure! I'm such a bad patient. I get to go back in 10 days to have them removed. Yeh. Dr says results were abnormal, but he removed all of it so no need to do anything more at the site and I should get yearly exams.

Yeh - one more "yearly' exam to enjoy.

Ahhh, it's Friday. Doesn't seem like much when you stay at home...it kinda all blends together.

Well we've made it through HFM and everyone seems to be healthy. Hannah is doing much better with breastfeeding again, so I'm guessing (I feel that's all I really do lately) she was just overwhelmed by all of the excitement/visitors over last weekend. Other than 20-30 minutes of fussiness here and there, easily solved by eating or a quick stroll around the block, she's really pretty good.

Nighttime is very easy although she does wake about every 3 hours. Each time is very routine, Mike takes her for a change and I feed her for 10-15 minutes, then she pulls off comatose again. Easy enough.

Will is doing very good. Going to a friend's house tomorrow for a birthday party - such big boys already. He is talking up a storm. Everything that comes out of my mouth or Mike's mouth is instantly repeated in the form of a question. Cute....the first 7,000 times, then it's just "Yes," followed by whatever was said. And he's such a ham. I had a few friends over the other night and he put on quiet the show in the pool. Hamming it up with splashing water in his face. I hope he never losses that sense of spirit and joy.