June 30, 2011

Isaac still hasn't shown a lot of interest in his baby brother, but today after watching Luke move around for a minute Isaac asked me "Ma, what is he doing with his hands and his feet?"  I told him that's just how babies move.  So Isaac laid on the bed and started waving his hands and feet in the air too.  It was cute and funny. 

June 29, 2011

We had a lot of clothes for Isaac, so I didn't buy much for Luke.  I couldn't resist these cute dachshund pajamas though and I'm sad that he's almost growing out of them.  Newborns are supposed to have a growth spurt around 3 weeks and I think Luke has definitely hit his - especially with the way he has been eating non-stop.  

June 28, 2011

I rarely go to Albertson's anymore because I buy most of our food at Sprout's, Trader Joe's, or Costco.  When I do go it is just to pick up some of the packaged foods that I can't get at those other places.  Luckily it all fit in a little cart so Isaac could push that while I pushed the stroller.  He is obsessed with wanting to push the stroller but he tends to either a) try to run with it, b) try to crash into something c) hang on it, d) repeatedly step on the wheel brakes, or e) all of the above.  I've never been so thankful for that little cart!

June 27, 2011

It's Monday.  Janelle is gone, and Charlie is back at work and the reality of life with two children is setting in.  I don't know if Luke is extra fussy today or if it's just because I have no help and less time to spend holding him.  He barely slept at all today unless it was in my arms or laying on my chest.  Every time I would get him to sleep and lay him down he would wake up again.  My eyes were burning and I was feeling exhausted and frustrated.  It was a tough day and I even cried a little.  I know it will get better though.  And having a newborn cuddled up to sleep on your chest is really not a bad way to spend the day.  

June 26, 2011

Today's photo was taken by Isaac.  He loves the camera feature on my iphone so any chance he gets to play with my phone he always snaps tons of pictures.  Usually I have several dozen random shots of his feet, the floor, a toy, etc.  When he does try to take a picture of a person he rarely captures a whole face.  I thought this was one of his best yet (even if I am kind of a mess).  

June 25, 2011

We really need to have some nice family photos taken, but we never do.  In fact it is rare that we take any photos with all of us together, and even then I usually have to set the timer on the camera and run back to get in the shot.  So before Janelle left today I had her snap a few shots of our little family with our newest addition.  

June 24, 2011

Charlie was scheduled to arrive home from NYC tonight.  He was supposed to fly into Orange County around 9:00 pm, but due to some major delays in New York he missed his connection in Chicago.  Luckily they were able to get him on a later flight, but landing at LAX instead.  Again,  I'm extremely grateful that Janelle is here so that I didn't have to drag both kids with me to LA at 10:00 at night to go pick up Charlie.  There was another girl on his flight who was also from Irvine and had no way to get back to the OC so we gave her a ride too.  I'm really glad Charlie was able to make it home.

June 23, 2011

Charlie is in NYC for work this week and I am so extremely grateful to have Janelle here to help.  I honestly don't know if I would make it through the week without her.  And I certainly wouldn't be leaving the house as much as I have.  Tonight we went back to the Nordstrom Cafe for salad and cake.  They had my favorite Boston Cream tonight but they didn't have the cupcakes that Isaac loved so much last week, so he shared (or rather devoured) my cake.  Janelle had the Lemon Coconut cake again, which I think might actually be tied for my favorite now.  Either way you can't go wrong.  

June 22, 2011

I'm not sure who hates going to get Cracker's nails clipped more - me or Cracker.  He is always a nervous wreck and I have to drag him through the store shaking and whining while Isaac tries to run in the opposite direction to go look at fish.  I always put this off as long as possible, but since Cracker got one of his nails caught in the carpet yesterday I figured it was time.  And best to go now while Janelle is still here to help.  Good thing too because it turned out to be total chaos.  Luke woke up and screamed loud enough for me to hear him clear on the other side of the store, Cracker was his usual bundle of nerves, and Isaac his usual bundle of energy.  I later heard Janelle on the phone with my father in law describing our outing as a "circus."  Sounds about right!  

June 21, 2011

Irvine is not really known for good restaurants.  Almost everything is a chain.  Tonight we decided to try out a new place that got good reviews on Yelp - The California Fish Grill.  Janelle and I both got fried fish plates and the food was okay but nothing special.  We started looking around and noticed that everyone else's food looked better than ours.  When we got home we took a better look at the reviews and realized we were supposed to order the grilled fish with garlic butter sauce.  Maybe we'll have to go back and try again sometime.  At least Isaac loved his food and cleaned his plate.  

June 20, 2011

Our community has a beach club just down the street from our condo.  It is a great spot with a sandy area, pool, water slide, fire pits, picnic tables, a volleyball court, etc.  Janelle has taken Isaac swimming here a few times already and tonight we went over for a picnic.  The evenings have been kind of cool and since it was getting late, they decided not to swim after dinner.  Isaac had other plans though and ran right in!  Janelle is such a good sport because she ran in after him and actually laughed about it.  I would have been totally annoyed if I was the one who had to go get him!  (They did have swimsuits on, but they still had their clothes on too.)    

June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day to Charlie!  Isaac helped Charlie open his gifts after church.  Ever since we adopted Cracker four years ago we have noticed that there are a multitude of dachshund greeting cards on the market.  Seriously, you can find one for any holiday.  And yes, I know we are a little crazy.  We got Charlie some shoes and a shirt and made chicken pot pie for dinner and a chocolate chip cake for dessert.  

June 18, 2011

We went to the Spectrum tonight to run a few errands.  Luke is still pretty sleepy so our outings have been relatively easy.  It doesn't hurt that Janelle is here taking care of Isaac.  Here is Luke snoozing in his stroller while Isaac & Grandma rode the carousel.  

June 17, 2011

Tonight we went to the Nordstrom Cafe for dinner.  We mostly went so that Janelle could try the cake, but the food is wonderful too.  I always get the same salad with mixed berries and blue cheese.  They didn't have my favorite Boston Cream cake tonight, so we went for the lemon coconut which was also fantastic.  

June 16, 2011

Baby Luke had his first doctor appointment today.  He is such a perfect angel baby!  He was awake and alert for the whole appointment and never made a peep.  He weighed in at 8 lbs. 13 oz., which is one ounce above his birth weight.  Newborns are supposed to regain their birth weight by the time they are 2 weeks (he is 10 days), so he is doing well there.  He looks perfectly healthy and is eating and sleeping like a champ.  

June 15, 2011

Today my mother in law, Janelle, arrived from New Mexico.  I am so thrilled to have her here to help!  She has already been so wonderful playing with Isaac and taking him out to ride his bike and to the park and even getting ice cream from the ice cream truck.  I forgot (again) to get a picture today, but these are all of the yummy pecans that she brought for us.  Las Cruces grows tons of pecans so she always brings us some when she comes to visit.  A friend from church brought me the beautiful peonies.  

June 14, 2011

Today was Isaac's last day of school.  Though we knew it was inevitable that he'd be changing classrooms, it is still very sad to say goodbye to the wonderful teachers that he had this year.  He has made a ton of progress and we really loved his teacher Miss Pam and the two assistants (below) Miss Ginger and Miss Janelle.  You could tell how much they really love their jobs and love the children.  

June 13, 2011

Here's another grainy iphone picture taken at the end of the day.  Isaac has gotten into a bad habit of falling asleep on our bed at night.  We put him to bed in his own room and then he sneaks up and goes to our bed.  I didn't realize how heavy he has been getting until I had to take a turn dragging his dead weight back to his bed one night!  On another note, we really love the new wood floor in the hall.  

June 12, 2011

Baby Luke is 6 days old today.  He still sleeps almost all day long.  I love to sit and watch him; even when he is sleeping he makes all sorts of funny facial expressions.  He is such a good and mellow baby.  I just love him!  

June 11, 2011

Saturday morning just after Charlie had finished the yard work we started hearing chainsaws in our backyard.  We looked out to see a tree trimming crew chopping away at a tree in the neighbor's yard.  By the time they were done, the bouganvilla was completely gone and there was barely any tree left.  We are really sad!  Sure, things were looking a little overgrown, but we thought the bouganvilla was beautiful and the tree and the flowers gave us a lot more privacy.  Our yard looks completely different now.  

June 10, 2011

Charlie had to go back to work Thursday and Friday because there were some important meetings he had to be at.  I really had not planned to leave the house four days after giving birth, but I had to pick up some medicine for Isaac and the pharmacy is not open after 5:00 or on the weekends.  Luckily Luke slept for most of our outing and Isaac was well behaved (I bribed him with cookies).  I'm still a little embarrassed that I went out in public looking the way I did, but we survived!  

June 9, 2011

Forgive me if this blog turns into a series of grainy cell phone pictures of my baby.  This is how I've spent the majority of the past couple days - snuggling with and feeding little Luke.  And I always have my phone close by, so I've been snapping lots of pictures.  I really should pull out the nice camera though!  

June 8, 2011

Believe it or not, Project 365 was the last thing on my mind the day we came home from the hospital.  I hadn't showered in two days, my house was a mess, the laundry needed to be done, and I had a new baby to snuggle and take care of.  I did too much and ended up in a lot of pain by the end of the day.  This is just a snapshot I happened to take with my phone after feeding Luke.  

June 7, 2011

My sister brought Isaac to the hospital the morning after Luke was born.  He wasn't that interested in his baby brother, but he did eventually warm up to him a bit by the end of the day.  We tried to get a nice family picture, but since I looked horrible and Isaac wasn't in a very good mood, this is the best we got.  

June 6, 2011

For some reason, the last thing I thought I'd be doing on my due date was delivering a baby.  Luke Martin Wood arrived at 9:39 pm.  He weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. and was 20.5 inches long.  He's perfect and adorable and such a sweet little baby.  We couldn't be happier!  You can read his full birth story on our family blog.  

June 5, 2011

Charlie is still good friends with a lot of his old co-workers from Bradshaw.  Brady & Sammi invited us over for dinner tonight.  The food was delicious and we had a fun time sitting around talking afterwards.  Isaac loved running around in their backyard playing basketball and picking lemons.  It was a nice relaxing Sunday evening.  Thanks you guys!  

June 4, 2011

Today we bought Isaac his first bicycle.  He has gotten a little too big for his tricycle and we decided it was time for a step up.  He was SO excited to get "a bike with four wheels!"  He got to test ride a few of them around the stores and we finally decided on this one with a fake motorcycle gear on the handle that makes an engine noise.  He probably spent about two hours riding this bike around in front of our house today.  He's still just a little short for it, but that doesn't slow him down one bit.  

June 3, 2011

It didn't take us long after moving into our home to realize that the previous owner most likely did a lot of the home repairs/renovations himself.  And he didn't do a very good job.  Our phone wiring has always been a mess and after the flooring guys were done our home phone no longer worked.  We figured they just moved the wires around enough to knock something loose.  Anyway, the Cox repair man was supposed to come today.  And they were supposed to call before they came.  Unfortunately, they called the home phone and I didn't answer.  Ahem.  Because the home phone is BROKEN and that's why I specified that they should call my cell phone.  To make a long story short, I made several phone calls and waited through three different appointment windows and they still never came.  And our wiring still looks like this:

June 2, 2011

At my doctor appointment I mentioned that I hadn't felt the baby moving as much lately, so they did a non-stress test (NST) to check in on him.  There was no activity for the first few minutes, so the nurse put this buzzer thing on my stomach to wake him up.  It was kind of funny because the baby suddenly jumped and then we got lots of movement from him after that.  The doctor did an ultrasound as well to check the fluid levels.  Everything looks good so I am not worried - I think he's just run out of space in there.  My due date is the 6th, and if he doesn't come on his own after that then I'm scheduled to be induced on the 10th.  

June 1, 2011

When is the best time to do home improvements?  How about the week before your baby is due?  Yep, that's what we thought too.  After cleaning out, repainting, and redecorating the nursery we decided that it would be really nice to have new carpet in there.  We've also been wanting to extended our hardwood floor from the living room into the hall.  And then we might as well get new carpet in the other bedrooms too.  So today we had the new hardwood installed and new baseboards in the bedrooms.  Tomorrow the carpet will be done.  This has required us to move everything from the back of the house out into the living room/dining room.  Not an easy task (especially being 9 months pregnant).  But in the end it was all worth it and we LOVE our new floor!