I know, I know. “That was so last year.” But here are some Christmas pics from our trip to North Carolina. All of my sisters and their families were there, and the stockings were hung from the faux chimney with care.
See some pics here. And here’s a decent one of us (sans Sasha, who was the doggie spa):
Happy new year! There have been many celebrations in our family in the past few weeks, the most exciting of which was probably Owen’s first birthday!
Here’s a photo of the birthday boy enjoying his first bites of pumpkin-apple cake.
And if you want to see the month-by-month changes in our little boy (with an occasional assist from big sister Ella), you can see some photos here.
We posted a few of them on the blog in real time, and here are the rest.
What a difference a year makes!
We have been woefully remiss about posting here lately… but here’s a holiday card featuring the Clarke quintet. Enjoy!
It’s hard to believe, but Owen yesterday hit day 122, better known as four months old!
In that short amount of time, he’s doubled his birth weight, added a few inches in height…oh, and just about everything else. Until you go back to having an infant in the house, you forget just how absolutely everything is new and has to be learned from scratch. I think it’s only then that you really get a sense of just how amazing our bodies and minds are, and just how much we’re capable of.
Owen’s latest: turning over in his crib at night. He won’t do it if he’s really sound asleep, but it looks like we may have another stomach sleeper. He did it for the first time the night of the 26th (and kept turning over again after we turned him back onto his back), and once again last night. He’s getting more and more talkative, and grabbing for toys. His big sister still thinks he’s awesome (when he’s not crying, that is), and it’s adorable seeing Ella lean in and give Owen a hug and a kiss before saying bye at daycare in the morning.
Happy 4-Month Birthday, Owen!
After a morning of church, Easter baskets, egg hunts and brunch at Talulla, we headed over to my parents for the afternoon. And can you believe it, the Easter Bunny came to their house too! Ella searched and searched for more eggs, while Owen hung out with Papa and Grandma:
The Easter Bunny was definitely prolific – Ella had another Easter egg hunt at school on Monday afternoon – but s/he also had a healthy twist – raisins at home and huge early season strawberries at Grandma and Papa’s.
Even more Easter pictures here.
Here’s one of my favorite photos from Easter: Owen’s socks. Thank you, Carter’s, for making insanely adorable footwear for the occasion.
On Friday, Ella dyed Easter eggs (under Owen’s watchful supervision), and on Saturday she further decorated the eggs with stickers, glitter glue and markers. Very carefully, she made sure to leave her Easter basket out Saturday night where the Easter Bunny could find it – and lo and behold, when she made it downstairs before church Sunday morning, it was gone!
After church, we had a little time before brunch (at Talulla, which was delicious!), and Ella took full advantage to search for her basket and eggs. The Easter Bunny apparently knew that Ella LOVES stickers, but there was one new delicacy that Ella was introduced to: Peeps!
(After one little bite, Ella decided she’d had enough. Probably more sugar in that one bite than she’s had in the previous month!)
Unbeknownst to the Easter Bunny, Ella had asked earlier if she could blow bubbles. And coincidentally, the Easter Bunny brought Ella new bubbles! And in true springtime fashion, we had beautiful warm weather to celebrate, so we could blow bubbles all morning long:
(And if anyone’s wondering – Owen decided to spend most of the morning sleeping. He was awake for part of church, but after that, slept until moments before we left for brunch. We figured this year he wouldn’t be ready for any jelly beans – maybe next year!)
More Easter pictures here.
We picked Ella and Owen up from daycare a little early today since we had yet to do one very important pre-Easter activity: dye Easter eggs!
Owen sat this one out, literally, by trying out his high chair for the first time. At times he was thrilled to be up and able to see everyone, but at other times he wasn’t so sure. Hopefully by the time we’re ready to try rice cereal he’ll be comfortable. Somewhat miraculously (it is Good Friday, after all…), we managed to get a picture of the one and only smile Owen flashed in his chair today:
We’ve discovered that using food coloring (especially the gels) makes for some really deep colors, which is great with a 3 year old who wants to take the eggs out almost as soon as they’re put into the cups. Still, we think we managed some nice colors (and some odd results from a couple of the colors).
Ella’s planning on decorating these eggs a little more tomorrow with stickers and markers – who knows just what they’ll look like by the time the Easter Bunny hides them Sunday!
Happy early Easter, everyone!
We’ve been feeling blessed by the great early season CSA-bounty lately, and especially happy that we’ve been able to utilize almost everything in some way or another. Perhaps this, our third year of splitting a share with my parents, really is the charm?
The year started off with a bang last month with kale, spring greens mix, carrots, shallots and honey. We knew it was destined to be a good year when we were able to turn that kale into a wonderful salad (kale salad with pinenuts, currants and parmesan) right off the bat. The shallots went into a dressing we’re still using, and the greens made their way into two big bowls of salad. The honey will have to wait – but with Ella’s more frequent requests for pancakes on the weekends lately, we’ll be into it before long.
Carrots and apples so far have been the two mainstays almost each week, with kale, potatoes, button mushrooms and parsnips making multiple appearances too. We’re getting better at integrating the offerings into our menu planning, instead of trying to retroactively shoehorn everything in after the planning is done. Combined with a food-adventurous (knock on wood) 3 year old (you should have seen her go through the carrot and parsnip puree!), we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. This week we’ll be seeing how she (and we) take to swiss chard – it looks almost too beautiful to eat.
Thus far, it’s been, to borrow from Alton Brown, good eats, but we still can’t wait untiil those first strawberries arrive in early June!
Owen’s been talking up a storm in his own 3.5 month old way lately. We finally managed to capture a bit of it on video:
Apparently Owen had heard of his Dad’s misadventures with alligators last month, ’cause he decided that he needed to show off his own alligator-wrestling skills while down at his Aunt Maria’s last weekend. I think he definitely was more successful at it than I was!
Both Jeff and I finished grad school last year, and as a graduation gift, we got to go see the Red Sox during Spring Training (thanks, Mom & Dad!). We had a blast, and fit in as much baseball as possible – two games Friday, and one each Saturday and Sunday, seeing the Sox in three of those.
It’s a completely differeny dynamic during Spring Training, and was a lot of fun: from seeing the visitors’ buses arrive to shagging batting practice homers in front of palm trees to having scorecards riddled with numbers over 70. There’s a series of jerseys that apparently are handed out each day to whatever minor leaguers are there that day; we saw #77 appear in three games, all worn by a different player (first base coach, right fielder, relief pitcher). We managed to also become experts in ballpark fare too, eating almost all meals (except breakfast) at the parks – stay away from the jalapeno poppers in Sarasota but the cheesesteaks in Port Charlotte hit the spot! It was amazing just how close you could get – we were down the third base line before Friday night’s game, and Josh Beckett came out to start warming up, all of about 10 feet away.
In between games, we snuck in a quick trip to the Everglades and Big Cypress Preserve, and got perhaps a little too cozy with the alligators. Good rule of thumb: don’t get out of your car if the gator is on your bank of the river. Thankfully, that’s a mistake you only make once, and all of my digits are safely accounted for. This guy was about 6-8 feet away from me when I first saw his muscles twitch. Next thing I remember, I’m scampering back to the car at full speed, proverbial tail between my legs with much splashing going on behind me.
I had a great time – and I have to thank Sara for being so flexible and willing to take care of Ella and Owen while I was away, as well as my parents for making the trip possible and helping to keep Sara sane. Bring on the regular season!
We’ve been a bit remiss lately with posting. Sorry! Cute babies who are still trying to distinguish day from night tend to keep tired parents from doing anything other than trying to catch sleep where we can.
Here are a few photos of our boy (and Ella), who is growing like a weed and may even be starting to teethe:
Ella received a Yoga Kids DVD for her birthday and we started watching it recently. The first time we watched it, she was content to sit on the couch and watch while I attempted all the poses (one for each letter of the alphabet). The next day, though, she asked to watch it and she tried doing all the stretches herself. The real fun began when I offered to let her use my purple yoga mat. She really likes the video, and while she doesn’t do all the poses quite the way they are shown in the video, I’m sure she’s getting some exercise–and she seems to really enjoy it, which is what counts!
Wow. Two months already! We are starting to get a little more sleep and are enjoying his laid-back personality.
He’s in good health, the doctor says, and here are his deets as of earlier this week:
Bad Behavior has blocked 101 access attempts in the last 7 days.