One month

Andrew is one month (and one day) old! He's really changed a lot in the last four weeks. It's especially noticeable as far as his weight is concerned; he's up to 10 pounds 2 ounces! I can definitely tell by my sore arms and back! He's got a little cold but hopefully it'll pass soon. It's hard to stay healthy with a sister who coughs in your face every day!

I'm stealing a page from my friend Martha's book; every week of her daughter Nora's life, she's taken a picture of Nora with a sign that says "I am _weeks old today!" It's been really fun to see her progress each week (she posts the pictures on her blog). I don't know that I can be diligent enough to do one each week, but I thought it would be fun to do this for Andrew for each month. Here's the first picture!We've had meals brought to us every other night for the last 10 days from our church family, which has been awesome! Even though I love to cook, it's been nice to not have to think about what's for dinner. People (especially at church) have also given us lots of gifts for Andrew, and a lot of those people have given gifts to Amelia too, so she's not left out. She is eating this up, of course!

One of my friends from Ladies' class had a toy kitchen that belonged to her daughter (who's now in high school). Cindy had told me a while back that she'd love to pass this on to Amelia, so Amelia played with it at Cindy's house the other day and then it came home with us. It has been really funny watching Amelia play in her kitchen! She puts on her little apron and chef hat and looks so cute (see picture below)! The funniest part of all of it, however, is the cash register. It has a little scanner that makes noise when you touch it to something, so as you can imagine, we've "bought" everything in the house with Amelia's cash register. Here's the best part: after you "buy" something, she says, "Thank you for shopping with us!" Ha! One too many trips to Kroger, I guess!

Pictures and stories

Well, we're starting week three and everything is still going well! At Andrew's two-week checkup he weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces, so he's back up past his birthweight and growing like a weed! He's had a couple of rough nights this week but last night was much better. Unfortunately, he has a stuffy nose, so that's no fun for any of us, but hopefully it'll pass quickly. Here are a couple pictures from this week. It's amazing to me how different he looks already!



In Amelia news: Amelia is really exercising her imagination these days. Tuesday when she came home from school, she decided she needed to have a birthday party for Humu (a stuffed fish she has). She then cleaned out her whole toy/book shelf and toy box to set up the party. Below is a picture of the guests at the party.

Amelia is quite the little mommy, both to her dolls and to Andrew, who she still calls "my baby." Here you can see her swinging her doll just like her little brother.

Even though it's March, we're still getting pounded with snow (welcome to the frozen north!). Yesterday Amelia went outside to help Bryan shovel the driveway (her idea, not ours...we promise); here is a picture of her getup.


One final bit of Amelia story: last week when I was about to nurse Andrew, Amelia was standing by and observing. She promptly sat down on the couch, pulled up her shirt, reached out her arms, and said "baby brother wants to drink milk from my tummy!" Needless to say, Mom and I got quite tickled! Have a great week!