Another month has flown by.  Aly is now 2 months old.  At her 2 month check-up she was 11 lbs 12 0z (77%) and 23″ (77%).  She has very good head/neck control.  The doctor commented that if she didn’t know it, she would guess Aly is a 4 month old baby.

We are getting into more of a routine at home.  We usually go to a couple playgroups during the week now.  Noah is always happy to get out and he usually naps better if he gets to run around.  He has been a chatter box lately (some of which I can’t understand).  He is taking more of an interest in singing and listening to dad playing guitar.

Aly loves to watch her brother play.  She usually eats, sleeps, then wakes up and plays for a bit before its time to eat again.  She eats about every 3 hours still.  She wakes up a couple of times a night to eat.

Indy has been escaping to play with the neighbor kids lately.  Its alright unless you need to go somewhere and you have to walk across the lake to bring her home.  I guess we aren’t giving her enough attention.

Jay has been busy with school and work.  Most nights he gets in home in time for dinner.  Which, is quickly followed by bath time and then bed.  Unfortunately he sees the kids at their crabbiest time of day.

I have been catching up on housework, pictures, and of course sleep.  Most nights I fall asleep on the couch while Jay is working on homework.

Next month should be busy.  I keep reminding Noah that Aly will be moving in with him in a few weeks.

I want to share an image I recently shot – it’s been a while since I’ve shot something I’m really happy with.  I’ve been busy with school, work, and kids so time has been at a premium to shoot anything except something related to kids.  I did however get a chance to shoot sunrise on New Years Eve day while we were up in Duluth visiting my parents.  The morning didn’t look like it’d be great, but turned out to be pretty good light right around sunrise, which then quickly went away and turned into a grey boring day.  Here’s the shot.

Aly is getting bigger fast – time is really flying by.  They say the first 6 weeks is the hardest, then they say the first 3 months, then 6 months, then blah blah blah.  Being this is our second kid we had a bit better idea what to expect.  Aly is different than Noah in a lot of ways.  She seems to be eating and sleeping a lot better, more content in general.  Noah was really skinny, Aly is more like other babies we’ve seen.  She is seeming to get skinner already than she had been at her 1 month checkup, but we’ll see in a few weeks how she’s tracking.  Already she looks a lot different than she did before.

She’s really started to make faces, smile, and stuff like that lately.  She’s also started wanting to stand up on her legs (supported at least).  She really enjoys it and you can feel her pushing herself to do it.  She even ended up rolling over from her belly to her back during tummy time a couple times yesterday.  It’s pretty neat to see her do that, I’m excited for every advancement because we know how much fun it’ll be once she’s moving around more and stuff.

Noah is a good big brother to her.  He’s really gentle at times, giving her kisses & hugs.  Other times he doesn’t like not getting the attention and acts out a bit.  I think it’s the worst when it’s just Kris watching the kids and she’s feeding Aly.  Noah doesn’t like not having the attention. Overall though, he’s a great big brother to her.  It’ll be fun watching them grow up together.

She really likes her baths, it’s pretty often a hectic time of night when it’s bath time, but usually I take Noah and do his bath, during that time Kris is giving Aly her bath.  Noah usually likes to help with Aly, so he’ll take a cotton ball and help wash her head or something like that.  I’m not sure how she’d get clean without him.

After her bath, she looks cute.

Here’s Mom & Noah from today, Kris wants me to tell you guys she was very tired.

She’s a little young to have this really work, but already Indy likes her quite a bit.

Tummy time again!

This Christmas we headed home to Columbus. It was a great trip, really great to get to see everybody. It was a long drive, so we ended up taking one day, driving to IL, then the second day driving the rest of the way. We did pretty well in the car when we drove early in the day – later in the day ends up being a crying competition between the 4 of us.

Before we left, we let Noah open a few of his presents from us so we didn’t have to take all of them. He had a great time with them, and for the first time was really into ripping the paper off.  It is fun enough watching him that I want to just give him a bunch of little boxes next time with paper on them to unwrap.

Once we were in Columbus, we had a great meal with the family – some of Kris’ brothers and sisters had to work on the holiday, so the schedule worked best to have the big meal on Friday.  It was fun.  Noah discovered the tree at Grandpa’s house, and had fun with all the toys that they have.  He had a blast with his cousins Owen and Adyln.  Owen and Noah end up running around playing with each other a lot, they seem to like the same sorts of things.  Noah liked the dogs – Mike has a Springer Spaniel named Bob and they’ve got a little mini mini collie named Polly.  She’s the same type of dog we had growing up (and Kris too), just seems like she stopped growing.  She’s really little, but Noah loved chasing her around.  Aly did really well with everybody, she’s been pretty content so far with things.

Here’s Owen (Lacey is holding him), you can see Ady and Michelle in the back.

Here’s Noah enjoying some presents from Grandma Mehling:

It was a really fun trip – we headed back after I cooked breakfast for Sam.  He’d worked all night on Christmas Day into his birthday (12/26), so we got up early and made chocolate chip pancakes.  They were really good, I cooked them with the largest cast iron pan I’ve ever seen.

Aly is officially 1 month old. The month has gone by very quick. She has been a very good baby. She seems to mostly eat and sleep. She usually gets fussy in the evening before bed. But, that is pretty much it. She is growing like a weed. Her height is 22″ (80%), her weight is 10 lbs 6 oz (79%), and her head is 37.2″ (50%).

We gave Aly her 1st bath after Thanksgiving. Noah is great at helping with the bath. He uses cotton balls to help clean Aly off.

Noah is getting use to having Aly around. He still gets jealous when I am trying to feed her. Hopefully that will subside over time. I have been trying to play outside with him in the afternoons while Aly is napping. He really likes the snow (just like his dad). He went sledding for the 1st time a couple of weeks ago.

Jay has been excellent at helping out. I went out by myself for the 1st time since Aly was born last week. I had my hair cut and went shopping for Aly. It was nice to spend some time by myself. Jay is learning his way around the kitchen more. He helped cook dinner the other night and did the dishes. He had to wear Noah in the backpack to keep him occupied.

Noah is getting excited for Santa. We went to the library to see Santa this year. Noah and Aly both did excellent. It helped that Santa handed out candy. This year we will be heading to Columbus for Christmas. We will be stopping in Bourbonnais on the way down and the way back to break up the trip.

We were able to take some newborn pictures of Alyssa while we were at the cabin. She is doing well. She was up to 8 lbs 4 oz at here 1 week old appointment. She is sleeping a lot and getting use to having a noisy brother around. She doesn’t seem to mind tummy time yet and is able to hold her head up for short periods of time.

We headed up to Duluth to spend Thanksgiving with the Luikart family. We left Medford on Wednesday afternoon. We only had to make 2 stops to feed Alyssa and let Noah run. It was nice to see everyone and to have help with Noah and Alyssa.

We were able to get in several naps. Noah had fun seeing his cousin Natalie. They boys worked on a tree fort for the kids. It looks like they were able to make quite a bit of progress. However, it will take several years to complete the project. Noah and Natalie had fun making gingerbread houses and Christmas cookies.

We were sad to go but happy to have Noah back home in his own room.

Alyssa Lauren Luikart was born on November 17th at 5:33am. Around 1:00am on the 16th we decided we were ready to head to the hospital. We called a friend to come over and watch Noah. We made it to the hospital at 2:45am and were surprised to find out I was dilated to 8cm. By 5:33am we were welcoming our new baby girl into the world. She was 7 lbs 12 oz and 19.5″. We are calling her Aly for short. It was adorable the first time Noah said Aly. My labor was much quicker and easier than with Noah. I was feeling like my old self again within a few days.

Noah and Grandma Luikart came to the hospital in the early afternoon on the 17th to meet Alyssa. Noah was very proud to hold his baby sister.

Grandma stayed with us for a few days. We were very grateful to have her around to help with Noah, Alyssa, Indy, Jay, and cooking.

Jay and Noah were able to get some father son bonding in during Jay’s week of paternity leave. They hung up Christmas lights, moved firewood, and ran some errands.

We did a pregnancy photo shoot when I was just over 38 weeks pregnant. It was a little difficult to keep Noah occupied. We ended up breaking out markers and Halloween candy to keep him interested.

Noah had a great Halloween weekend here in Medford.

On Saturday afternoon we went to the Candy Drop in town. He was very excited to see the fire engine raise its ladder and drop candy for him. The first thing he picked up was 2 suckers and then a toothbrush. He brought back a few more handfuls of candy.

On Sunday we went to the Harvest Days Parade in town. Noah liked the fire engines, band, and horses the best. He picked up lots of candy at the parade and another toothbrush.

After the parade we went trick-or-treating in town. It was raining and cold. We only went to a handful of houses and we were ready to head home. Here are some pictures of Noah in his dinosaur costume.