Andy at 8 weeks

More cute faces!





"Posing makes me tired."

I've mentioned this before, but this child sure does spit up a lot. He seems to take each new outfit as a challenge and will frequently christen one before I even get it snapped up all the way. I mentioned this to Cousin Lonnie, and he said, "Ah ha! The smell of a clean shirt makes him sick!"

I think I need more hands

Yesterday I ran across some pictures from a couple of Ukrainian crochet magazines, which led me to the work of Antonina Kuznetsova (check out page 2 there, too). Absolutely amazing. I would love to figure out how to do this.

Back to the Drawing Board

It's been a few months since I contributed to one of the collaborative kits at NDISB. For March we're doing a Spring/garden theme with some bright colors. I sat down with Kate (while she was playing with her Play-Doh) and sketched these out (along with a couple of other coordinating pieces that I haven't done yet):




It took a few days but I got everything put together. I don't work very quickly in the first place, and of course it's just that much more difficult with two kids. Doug took Kate out to Snake Lake (and the library) for a few hours yesterday, and I was able to get everything finished and uploaded.




These are made with layered shadows. They're a bit fiddly but the effect is pretty cool.



I included my chickadee drawing, too, since I hadn't done anything with that yet.

Kate's been creating some digital art, too. She's quite handy with the mouse. The other day she was playing with this drawing game on PBS Kids and said, "Look, it's a giraffe eating coconuts!" It was so cute, I just had to get a picture.



And here's a non-digital piece: a lion at the zoo. I love the mane and claws.



I also added Kate's illustrations to Doug's birthday post. It was my sister Barb's birthday too. Check out the fun birthday signs that her husband Kyle made for her. Cute!

Andy at 7 weeks

Yes, I'm behind again. These were taken last Saturday.



Here's Andy having nakey time on the bed. (With his diaper on, so I guess it's only half-nakey time.) He seems to enjoy the different sensation.





I have a hard time choosing pictures to post. I get so many cute ones! (Oh yes, all manually focused--how'd I do?)

Andy says, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

My sister-in-law Karen sent this set of "Baby's First" bibs, with cute applique pictures for different holidays. There are three bibs, but they're reversible, so there are six different holidays (well, five holidays and birthday). Such a clever idea! They arrived yesterday (good timing) so I thought I'd have Andy model this one for Valentine's Day.




It turns out my camera is fine, but my lens has stopped auto-focusing. (This is the 50mm 1.4 lens.) This means the camera won't fire when the lens is on auto, since it can't achieve a focus lock. It'll work fine on manual. I do have my 100mm lens, too, but it's not very good for indoors, since it requires more light and more room. I'll probably replace the 50mm as soon as I can. For now I guess I'll be practicing my manual focusing skills.

My Daddy, by Kate, age 4. (Happy Birthday!)

It's Doug's birthday today! I thought it would be fun to interview Kate and make a little book for Doug. We did this a couple of days ago (I had to use Doug's PDA to record her answers, since she was talking too fast for me to write them down).

What's your daddy's name?
Ummm... Doug!

What do you like to do with Daddy?
Well, I like to play in the snow and throw snowflakes and make footprints and play soccer ball and make funny animal tracks and make a snowman, and then we can camp in the night while the sun goes down!

What do you think Daddy's favorite food is?
I know, maybe a birthday cake with candles on it, and then we can sing Happy Birthday to Daddy and then he can blow out the candles like this, and then we can eat it like this!

What do you think Daddy's favorite color is?
His favorite color is tan.

Yeah? Why?
Because he likes that.

Where does Daddy work?
He works onto the computer at home, and he works on paper here too. He works on the computer like that and he works on stuff.

Where does he work when he goes away? Where does he go, during the day when he's gone?
I know, at school!

What does he do at school?
Yeah! Because Daddy will pretend to be the teacher!

Where do you and Daddy like to go together?
I know, we like to go to the library later to get some new books. And then we can go to the library to get some movies too. Yeah, and then Daddy and I can go home to watch the library movies.

What's your favorite thing to do with Daddy in the house?
I know, play tag when I'm feeling better. And then I can play tag and I can take baths.

What's your favorite book to read with Daddy?
I know... maybe... The Girl's Like Spaghetti!

What is Daddy's talent? What is he really good at?
He's good at doing a talent show of the Elephant and Piggie dance!

What does Daddy do at church?
He likes to sing songs into a book, and then he likes to go into the class to the teacher, and then he can go back home here.

What does Daddy wear to church?
I know, he wears a coat and coat pants.

And anything else?
And... a hat!

A hat? What else does he wear?
Hat? And a shirt?

Does he wear anything around his neck? At church?
No... not actually!

What do you help Daddy do? Are you a good helper?
Make many foods.

How old do you think Daddy is?
Ten years old?

Who's Daddy's favorite little girl?
Me!

Kate provided a couple of illustrations, also, which I shall try to include as soon as I can--my scanner isn't hooked up to the new computer yet and my camera has (eep!) decided to go on the fritz.

Edit: Here are Kate's illustrations!



This is Daddy. Kate tells me he's holding a toy snake.



This is a birthday cake with a "smiley face decoration." Kate says the round thing on the bottom is a balloon.

Happy Birthday Doug!

Andy at 6 weeks

We made it through six weeks already! Yay!



I've mentioned Andy's nightly screaming sessions. He's been varying the times. Monday night he didn't scream till it was almost time to get up. Tuesday night he kept me more-or-less awake from midnight to about four. I definitely needed a nap after that. Last night he got most of his screaming out of the way before bed, and then slept solidly for the same midnight-to-four stretch. Ahhhhh! He still sleeps really well during the day. It's tempting to just let him sleep as much as possible, so I can get other things done, but I know he does better at night if I keep him awake a bit more during the day.





I remember Kate starting to smile at this age. Andy mostly looks worried, but he does give us a few cute little smiles.

Upgrading

We just finished putting together a new computer for me. This is actually my Christmas present. Originally I said I wanted Adobe Lightroom, but we looked into it and figured it might not run well on my system, so we started talking about upgrading. (I wouldn't say it got out of hand, as such, but I expect this'll be my birthday and Mother's Day present too. Heh.) We've been getting everything installed and transferred, and trying to remember how to do things like activating the Korean IME pad. The new system has dual processors and 4 gigs of RAM, and I used some of my design money to get two 320-gig hard drives, since I was running out of room (and behind on my CD-burning, as usual). I'm looking forward to getting all my digi-scrapping stuff in one place and organizing it. (Sorting! Yay!)

Blessing Day

Andy was blessed this last Sunday. (Here's a brief explanation if you don't know what this is.) My sister Barb made this cute little outfit. I put it back on him to get pictures today, since I wasn't able to on Sunday for reasons which I shall relate. (Barb also made the dress that Kate wore for her blessing. My mom blogged about it recently.)



Another sneeze! Achoo!

My dad flew out for the occasion. It was a quick trip--he came on Saturday and left early Monday morning. My mom wanted to come too, but a few weeks ago she realized that she just wasn't feeling well enough and needed to stay home. We missed her. (Hopefully we'll get to go out to Ohio this summer.)



Andy meets Grandpa.






Grandpa had hardly arrived before Kate roped him into a game of Hungry Hungry Hippo. Then she said, "Let's play funny faces! Ten funny faces." She made (and numbered) ten faces, and then pointed at him and said, "Okay, now it's your turn!" Ha.

Since moving to the 9:00 schedule, we've had a little trouble getting to church on time. I got up at 6:00 and took a shower, to be sure I'd have enough time to get everyone ready. As it was we still got there after the opening song and prayer, and when they said it was time for Andy's blessing I had to hurry and get him out of his car seat and do up that last button in the back.

Our friends Scott and Tom came to stand in the circle. Cousin Lonnie wanted to come but couldn't get off work. (He said, "You try getting the day off on Superbowl Sunday.")

I was worried that the outfit would be way too big for Andy, but the legs hiked up nicely and he wasn't quite swimming in them. The collar kept flipping up into his face and he kept trying to eat it.

After the meeting we got some pictures out in the lobby. Here's our less-than-successful attempt at a family picture:



I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Probably saying something to Dad about the camera.



Kate's playing with a little googly eye that she found on the floor.



Kate flips her hair; Andy looks like he smells something bad.



Absolutely no one looking at the camera.



And now we're all blurry! What's up with that?

Kate went off to Primary, but we had to subject Andy to a few more photos. (Okay, I suppose Doug will object to my use of the word "we" here, so I'll admit it was completely my idea. No surprise there.)









Andy says, "Enough with the pictures, already!"

Andy slept in his car seat for the rest of the meetings. He didn't even really wake up when I buckled him back up for the ride home. After we got home I asked Doug, "So, do you think I should get Andy out now, or eat first?" and Doug said, "Eat first." So Andy was in the seat for a while longer. Then when I went to get him out I discovered that he'd had a blowout all over his beautiful white outfit. Ack. I called Barb to get washing instructions, and everything came out just fine. Hooray!

After naps, we went out to Cousin Lonnie's house in Puyallup for a yummy dinner of smoked trout. My mom had requested a vertical family picture, so we tried to get one out there. The lighting was not great.




(I can clone out that pole.)

And some of Grandpa with the kids:



Andy's face in this one just cracks me up.




Is that enough pictures? Whew!

We had a nice visit, though very short. I got up early the next morning to give my dad a hug on his way out. (I was going to anyway, but Andy woke me up just at the right time.) Thanks for coming to see us!

Andy at 5 weeks

I remembered to take these in the midst of all the excitement this past weekend.

Andy's newborn-size sleepers are getting a little harder to put on. I guess we'll be moving to the 0-3 month size soon.





Andy has a routine of screaming himself to sleep every night. He doesn't do it when he sleeps during the day (usually), but every night he has to have his screaming jag, sometime between 10:30 and 12:30. After making sure he's fed and comfortable, there's really nothing for it but to let him scream. It doesn't usually last too long. Other people have told me their kids did something similar. We think he's a cute little guy and we can put up with a little screaming.