Happy Father's Day!

Happy First Father's Day, T.J.!

In labor - 1 day left! 3.8.09

Joseph's Birthday - 3.9.09

1 Day Old - 3.10.09

First day back to work - One week old. 3.16.09

Piedmont Park: 4.2.09

Mother's Day: 5.10.09

Oakland Cemetary - 5.30.09

First walk with daddy: 6.14.09

It's a bird, It's a plane! No, it's...

Super Joseph!

OK, so we have some work to do, but it's a pretty good first try!

The bib even resembles a cape!

He did enjoy "flying", though he didn't really get the concept of putting his arms out. He still prefers to have them tucked in. I guess that's good since my hands were on the camera!

Farmer Joseph

Joseph and I have been working hard in our garden, and look what we have!

Zucchini, roma tomato, and cucumber from our urban garden:

"Who're you calling a gherkin?"

I love reading!

Joseph loves to read before naps!

"But I don't WANT to go to sleep!"

"Maybe pleading my case will help"

Update: Joseph is still tiny.

We went for a shot visit at the pediatritian, and I asked the nurse to weigh him as well since he's been falling percentiles since birth. Yesterday was no exception. He's now 12lb 5oz - around 25%. I'm looking into renting a baby scale to see how much he is eating, to rule that out. I'm 80% sure that he's just tiny because he has T.J. and I as parents. We were both peanuts as babies. But just in case, I'm going to do a little sleuthing.

The shot itself went ok - he only cried for about 30 seconds, then nursed and felt better. Poor guy had just fallen asleep when they called us back, so he was overtired as well. He was an all star all day though - we went to La Leche League, then to a mom's group near us, before heading home. He did his fair share of sleeping through those! And he really caught up last night - he went to sleep around 3:30 or 4 and slept till 6 or so, waking only to eat and have his diaper changed.

Three years today!

Today is our anniversary! I've been reminiscing during Joseph's nap with old photos. Enjoy!

Grad school graduation
Notre Dame - May 2003

Alaska - August 2004

Engaged
Chicago - May 5, 2005

Notre Dame - August 2005

Minnesota - August 2005

Wedding
Notre Dame, June 2006
Wise Old Tree - June, 2006

Wedding Reception
Notre Dame, June 2006
Pittsburgh
Christmas 2006Hawaii - January 2008

Alaska - May 2008

Atlanta - March 2009

Second Swim

Joseph and I went swimming with our friend again today, and it was even more fun! Joseph was splashing and kicking - he even swam on his front! And you are in luck, we took many pictures and a couple of videos!

Here are a few of my favorites:

Enjoying the water in the hot summer sun

Mama helping Joseph on his back

Wrinkled toes! (or: Gracious his feet are large!)

Are you lookin' at me? Or just admiring my awesome breast stroke?

New videos posted

I uploaded them to smugmug, but since they are so large I don't want to upload to blogger, too. So if you want to see them - just click on this link.

Cloth Diapering update

We've picked up a few more things, so for the readers who are CD'ing I thought I'd update what we're using.

• We still use KL0's, which I'm surprised about. They only work for daytime though.
• We've moved up to yellow edge GMD prefolds, I think they'll fit well past their 15lb stated max.
• We've gotten a few Bububebe (B4's) and I love them. The inside is organic bamboo or cotton velour, which seems to act like fleece in that Joseph doesn't feel as wet. Cute prints, too. They are pricey to buy new, but I've scored each of mine for $14 used on Spot's Corner and Diaper Swappers.
• Cricketts have been my go-to for nighttime. They are working well.
• Happy Hempys are our other nighttime diaper. They are just kind of "stiff", so I try to use the cricketts if they are clean.
• I just ordered medium sized Thirsties covers. The smalls are still fitting prefolds and KL0's, but they don't fit the cricketts/hh as well. The B4's fit in the smalls since right now they are on the smallest setting. We like these covers more than any other PUL covers. I also like Imse Vimse organic, but they aren't quite as versatile. They do seem more breatheable, but we have wool for that purpose.

In bad cloth diapering news, I had to "strip" my diapers. Sometimes detergent can build up on diapers and trap stinkiness in them. The cure - a dash of Dawn dish soap after your wash cycle. It breaks down the detergent to wash it away, I guess. Then you just rinse, rinse, rinse until there are no more bubbles. This took me many tries. I think 5 rinse cycles! Luckily our machine is HE, so it uses very little water per wash. The diapers came out smelling very fresh and clean. Yey! The way to prevent buildup is to use less detergent, but I get nervous about not getting them clean enough. I'd say 3 months isn't a bad run before needing to strip, eh?

DomerBaby Cuteness

It was (unintentionally) "Domer Day" the other day - he had his ND pajamas and then his seersucker overalls on! So adorable! Originals here