Hot weekend

Whew! Getting through a stretch of 87 degree days with no AC and just two fans was a bit of a challenge. Fortunately, Monday brought with it a return to our more temperate summer weather, which I am very grateful for. It was especially hard now that Cora has taken to the baby wrap and I couldn't have her in it for more than 5 minutes before we were both drenched in sweat. Yuck! The picture to the left is a dahlia from one of the planters on our bedroom balcony. I decided to try out our new camera for some close-up shots just as the sun was going down and the lighting was nice. When I planted them this spring, I was hoping to be able to cut them for use inside the house, but the plants haven't yielded that many blooms thus far. Probably need more Miracle-Gro, as I learned from my mom, the expert gardener, when she was here visiting. I'll work on that.

Here's Cora all stretched out in the summer heat...I think this pretty much sums up what we all were feeling! It's funny how moving out here has completely reset my thermostat for what kind of heat I can tolerate. In the Midwest, it's not uncommon to have weeks and weeks of weather like this, with close to 100% humidity to boot! Now if it gets above 80 degrees, I'm feeling it. We bought the shirt she's wearing on our trip to Kauai in March; Larson has a matching one and they both wore theirs yesterday.

This was Larson's fun Saturday afternoon activity with dad: washing the truck! As you can see, he is all grown up and can spray down the sides all by himself.

The open water swim went well and Larson had a great time with his friend, Malia. No pictures, though, because Brett didn't want to bring the camera. Despite the heat, Brett said the water in Lake Washington was still pretty chilly. The highlight for Larson was getting to see both an ambulance and a firetruck when they were called to the race location to tend to a participant. Lights, sirens and everything!

That's all for today. Here's Cora sleeping peacefully. She's still doing a great job sleeping at night, with pretty long stretches for me to sleep as well. During the day, it's a little harder; there's a lot of holding involved...I've forgotten that 1-2 hours awake is about all that a newborn can handle before they get overtired. Unlike Larson, she likes to be held and rocked and then put down, whereas all he needed was motion (swing, carseat, etc) but didn't seem to care a bit about being held. I guess this is just an example of their different personalities and temperaments showing themselves! So much to learn about my little one...

New name

Yes, I changed the name of our blog. It just doesn't seem fitting to have Larson get all the spotlight. We'll try this one out for a bit and see how it goes...

...and now we are four!

Well, it's been a week since Cora joined our family and things seem to be following the "it's easier the second time around" pattern so far. Is this because second (and third, etc) babies are inherently more laid back or perhaps that parents are less freaked out and anxious about every little thing? I'm guessing maybe a combination of both, but speaking for myself, I'm definitely less anxious about things this time. We had our first checkup at 5 days old and Cora had gained almost half a pound...could be just a different scale, but I think at least some of it is real. She is already too big for the smallest size diapers, good thing I only bought one pack!

Larson & Nana meeting Cora

Yesterday we had a lovely day at home for my birthday. Brett, Cora & I went to Trophy Cupcakes for a treat and brought some more home for the whole family at dinner. Larson probably would have eaten all of them if we let him. He tried really, really hard to be patient until it was time to eat his cupcake, but couldn't control himself to ask for one about every 20-30 seconds. For dinner, I got to eat something I've been craving for months: sushi! It was yummy. Larson kept asking to see it, but was not interested in trying any. Maybe next time.

All ready to go home!

The heat that we've been escaping this summer is here for a few days: today the high is going to be 90! That is really hot for this un-air-conditioned neck of the woods. We have our fans working overtime to keep the house cool until it passes, which will hopefully be in the next few days. I was a little nervous last night because I've been swaddling Cora for sleeping and it was just too hot to do it...would she sleep anyway? Fortunately last night she did, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

So, yes, our lives are definitely different now that our family is bigger and even simple things, like trying to have dinner together, have their new challenges. Despite all this, I couldn't be happier. Larson is really excited to show Cora all his toys and wants to help out with just about everything. He follows me around the house and alerts me when Cora cries that she "needs to eat, Mama!" Some of our happiest moments are spent playing on our bed or on the couch, en famille, laughing, etc and now we will just make room for another body to jump on the cushions and get buried in the pillows. Life is good.

Tomorrow, Brett and our friend Stephen are going to swim in an open water event at Seward Park. Hopefully we'll get some fun pictures from that, even though I'll be home with Cora. In the meantime, here's a couple of photos of Larson: first, watching Olympic swimming with dad and second, enjoying his own swim class (and despite a rocky start, he loves it now and gets into all the activities...last week he even did the "submarine" on his own - that's toddler speak for putting your head under the water :)

Announcing Cora Irene Buchholz!

Our new arrival is finally here! This will just be a quickie post with the essentials while we adjust to life at home with a new little one...

Cora made her way into the world at 1:07 am on the lucky date of 8/8/08 weighing in at 7 pounds 8.5 ounces. She is named after my maternal grandmother who passed away while I was in college. We're all doing well and happy as can be (though a little sleep-deprived!). Larson is handling the adjustment of having a baby sister as well as can be expected for any toddler. He's full of questions about what she's doing ("Why is she crying?" "I want to see that thing on her belly button again...") but definitely has apprehensions about having to share the spotlight. Fortunately his Nana is here to shower him with attention and help a little with getting things in our house going again. Here are some of Cora's first photos:

Weighing in

Dad and Cora

Getting her first shampoo - where did all that dark hair come from? Definitely different from Larson's bald newborn head but equally precious.

I will try to publish more details and photos soon but for now it's time to catch a little sleep...

Summer days

It's mid-July and summer is definitely underway. Larson comes home from school nearly every day with his clothes soaked after playing in the hose outside in the afternoon to keep cool. Like any toddler, he doesn't seem to mind :)

We've enrolled in swim lessons, round two, but this time our guy has been a little less cooperative. Comfort level in the water = improved; willingness to participate in what the rest of the class is doing = needs improvement. Oh, well, it's still a fun time for Larson & Brett.

For the second summer, our CSA has been providing us with a weekly box full of fresh, organic and tasty produce which we really enjoy. Larson loves to look and see what's in the box each week, although his interest stops at actually eating any of said food (we're still working on that...). Our cool spring helped produce the most delicious strawberries I can remember eating in a while and we've also enjoyed snap peas, beets, carrots & last night I made pasta with carmelized fennel. (I think it smelled and tasted wonderful, but I'm a little impaired right now with a stuffy nose, unfortunately). It's fun to take the list of what's in the box and create a week's worth of healthy, fresh food -- our grocery store needs definitely go down a lot during the 20 weeks of our CSA! I love that we're supporting a local farm and getting great food all at the same time. I used to be a farmer's market junkie, but parenthood has put a damper on the amount of time I have free to browse and pick every week, so the CSA has been a great solution. If you want to find one near where you live, try googling CSA and your state or region...that's how I found ours!

Other fun tidbits:

* Thanks to Miss Alexis & Miss Lindsey, Larson now asks to be excused when he is finished eating and wants to leave the table.

* Larson can now sing the entire ABCs by himself (and SOOOO into letters -- "Look! There's an S on that sign!")

* Favorite color is still green, but he admits that he likes red lollipops the best (he took 3 days to finish a Tootsie Pop last week...we just asked him if he was done and wrapped it up in foil until the next day like it was no big deal)

* LJ loves to help mom make pancakes on Saturday morning -- knows almost all the ingredients!

We still have a few preparations for the new baby, but feel like we're getting as ready as we'll ever be. I passed 37 weeks this week, so hopefully it won't be too much longer before we have some exciting news and photos to share. I hope everyone living in hotter climates than we do is staying cool!

Summer is finally here!

It's been a while since I posted anything on the blog, so I thought I'd recap a few highlights of spring, then add some more recent photos. Spring in the NW this year was long and cold, but as of last weekend, it looks like we are finally getting some consistent sunshine and temps above 65 - hooray! Larson continues to change and surprise us, not to mention provide some pretty choice entertainment. In March, we went to the zoo with friends Stephen, Karyn & Malia to hunt for eggs on Easter weekend. April brought a surprise snowfall and Larson got to help put together his first real bed. The transition went pretty well and he now proudly proclaims that his crib is "in the garage!" May was a pretty exciting month: visits from Grandma & Grandpa Buchholz, then not one but two birthday parties, and a visit from Nana, Bompa, Aunt Kate, Uncle Mark & Cousin Wyatt which included a weekend at the beach. I'll try to recap with some choice photos below:

Hunting eggs at the zoo (preferentially going for the green ones, of course!)

Malia showing Larson how the ring toss is done

Spring brunch w/friends (from L: Larson, Alex, Malia, Kaleo, Dalton, Alden)

Practicing using the scissors on playdough (I just love watching him concentrating on getting those little fingers to do just want he wants them to - and celebrating the "I did it!" at the end)

I may be a bad mama for posting bathtub photos of my child, but this one was too cute to pass up! To think that Larson almost fit in that pink tub for his first bath...

April showers? no, snow!...yes, that is a cherry tree with BLOSSOMS in the background :)

Taking a cracker break while helping dad put together the new bed

Walking with Grandma & Grandpa at the Ballard Locks

Boy + stick = many cherry blossoms on ground

Wyatt & Larson at the beach

Wyatt & Larson

Larson & Aunt Kate

Does this even need a caption? Trying really, really hard to get the lawnmower to go...

That about catches up to June. Those photos are still stuck in our camera. This month we have been outside more and more, going to the park, beach, and hanging out in our little yard/garden. Since we redid all our landscaping last fall, Brett and I have felt a little more invested in keeping our little project looking nice. Larson loves to help with the weeding, etc, though I had to draw the line this weekend when he was trying to grab the pruners. I wonder how long "that's a grown up tool" will satisfy as an explanation for various and sundry things I don't want him to play with? I'll try to not let such a long interval pass before putting more pictures up. We have FINALLY rid ourselves of our old behemouth desktop computer and fully made the transition to sleek, small, space-saving laptop. Now we just need to get a new camera before #2 arrives sometime in the next 6 weeks!

A week in paradise

We're back from our family vacation to Kauai - it was wonderful! We didn't see a drop of rain the entire time and really enjoyed just relaxing together for a week. Larson was a great traveler for the most part, just a few nap-less days. On the way home he entertained himself for an entire 20 minutes with his seat belt - "Look! I did it MYSELF!" We were at the beach most mornings with a few other outings mixed in. This is a picture of a rooster which is actually a common site in Kauai - and sound at 5am! Chickens and roosters are everywhere for reasons that I couldn't quite uncover and I guess they stick around and multiply because people don't have the heart to eradicate them. Odd. Brett and I wondered if the chicken we were about to eat in our lunch was just caught down the road :) Anyway, here are some more photos from our trip!

Larson digging at Lydgate State Park, a protected swimming area on E Kauai

'Anini Beach - lovely for both swimming and snorkeling

Brett and Larson on 'Anini Beach

Larson enjoying the playground at our resort

Ke'e Beach - also great for swimming & snorkeling (just stick your head underwater and - voila! - colorful fish!)

Larson trying on flippers

Taro field near Hanalei

Parked surfer trucks at Hanalei Bay - we concluded that everyone here starts work at 10am or later :)

The family overlooking the Hanalei Valley

Look! I made a snake from my PB&J crust!

The family at Kilauea lighthouse - on a bird sanctuary, so lots of albatross & red-footed boobies flying around!

View of the lighthouse

Larson toting his "treasure bag" at the Na'Aina Kai Botanical Gardens

Sitting in the warm water throwing rocks at SeaLodge Beach (we had it all to ourselves, but required a bit of a hike to reach it)