Sarah has been with us for two months now, and she’s adjusting to life in our family (or the other way around). She’s asleep right next to me now in this magical sort of chair that I imagine must be just like sitting in the most comfortable recliner ever (except, for babies). Much like her cousin Abigail, Sarah digs the rocking.

Just this past weekend she’s started smiling the heck out of the place, we assume because her Auntie Christine was in town.  It’s hard to capture her smile in photo form though, as she immediately sees the camera and loses the smile.

Her baby acne is mostly gone (yay!) but she’s got some fierce cradle cap like her brother did. She’ll sometimes smile at you if you look at her and ask and make silly faces.  Tickling her gives her an inquisitive look and does not produce giggling.

 She sucks her thumb sometimes, when she can find it. She likes the animals on the mobile in the pack ‘n play, and will try and bat them with her hand when they swing on by.  She makes little noises, mostly grunts although I swear I got a ‘coo’ out of her yesterday.

Her eyes have turned a bit more blue than they were a month ago, but who knows if they’ll stay that way… her brother’s were blue for a while and changed to a greenish hazel color.

She’s pretty awesome, and we’re very lucky.

He totally stepped up to the plate on Christmas morning and opened his little sister’s presents for her. Here he is opening one of his:

Also Ted drinks his organic vanilla flavored milk with peppermint lollipop exclusively when his parents feel like busting out of the house and going to Starbucks.  He danced to the Christmas music there, bringing a little holiday joy to the coffee shop.

Here’s Ted pushing the coordination limits of 3-year-old boys when playing our Wii.  He didn’t fall and smack his head or break our TV/Wii, and for that we are grateful.

Ted embraced the arts during his forty-fifth month by doing a bunch of Christmas crafts to get us into the holiday spirit. He also sang in his preschool’s Christmas party, playing bells during the Jingle Bells song, like the Renaissance boy that he is.

He also helped us decorate the Christmas tree (with his Auntie Christine) and put his signature touch on it by putting nearly almost all the ornaments on the same branch.

Sarah’s been with us for a month now, and life couldn’t be more different or awesome. She refreshes my memory on just how challenging it is to be the parent of a baby all over again. She’s also super-cute and makes me feel even more lucky.

Here’s a picture of her in crib, which she’s only spent a few hours. She’s been sleeping in our room at night, which is a different approach than we took with Ted. So far its been working out well. I think both Kate and I have been sleeping much more than we did when Ted first showed up.

Sarah had a quite a few visitors during her first month, including two visits with Auntie Christine! Here’s her and her Gram enjoying some time together.

She does usual baby stuff like eating, sleeping, crying, wiggling and charming those around her.  Here she is napping in her swing, which while not always magic, does occasionally make a cranky baby a happy baby.

Happy one-month birthday baby girl.  We are so thankful you decided to join our family.

PS: Remember when her brother was one month old?

Ted was well prepped though. We took a sibling class at the hospital before Sarah was born and he learned all about the different cries babies make and how to change their diapers (a skill I only wish he was ready for).

Ted seems to be taking the change in-stride… mostly.  We’re not sure what he thought before his sister got here, but I think he realizes she’s sticking around for good.  He does like the title ‘big brother’ though, and in his mind it is a promotion over ‘big kid’ and comes with some more power and responsibility.

In November, Ted got to play out in the leaf pile generated from our one tree.  He helped me rake and made a pretty sweet dive into the pile afterwards. (Last year’s leaves.)

Kate and I got to attend Ted’s Thanksgiving performance and party at his preschool.  He and his class sang some songs and then his teachers went crazy with some sugary sweets, just like the first Thanksgiving.  Here Ted is eating a massive cookie with sprinkles on it.

He’s sporting a school-crafted construction paper headdress for Thanksgiving.

His forty-fourth month also included a week-long visit from aunts Christine, Kim and Anne, as well as cousins Jack and Ben.  With Jack there was much playing, running, and goofiness to be had.

Goofiness and Pixar pajamas, apparently.

Ted’s forty-third month is, we suspect, his last month as an only child. He’s excited about it. He was also very excited about Halloween the whole month. He’s an excited-about-life kind of kid.

Here’s Ted at a local farm. His preschool had a field trip there so we could check out the animals, go on a hay-ride and then pick out some pumpkins. It was fun for me, as I got to meet his teachers and his class-mates.

We moved furniture around a bit to clean our carpets and put Ted’s picnic table underneath our kitchen table. Ted immediately started dining there. We don’t let him eat there for every meal, but he does seem to like having his own personal covered dining space.

Ted’s Grandpa Al came down to visit during Ted’s 43rd month. They hung out, played and made cookies together. He also introduced Ted to the wonder that is beater-licking.

He’s started to read just a little, too. He knows his letters and many of the sounds they make. If we push him a little, he’ll sound them out and try to form words out of them.

He and Kate planted lettuce and flowers a few weeks ago and we ate the harvest with supper tonight.

Ted also got to meet our friend Scott recently, who I went to school with and was visiting from up north.  We showed Scott around the area, taking him to our town’s farmer’s market and sampling Five Guys (which isn’t local but is delicious!).

Forty-two month-old Ted still likes baseball.  We went up the street a few nights ago to play some late-summer t-ball.  He’s getting better.  He catches, he runs the bases in the right order, and can almost tag out his pregnant mother.  She’s fast.

Ted digs art and, when properly motivated, can be convinced to not just smear all the paint together in a UPS-like brown glob.

Ted’s art influence is no doubt being affected by his recent start of preschool.  So far so good there.  His teachers say he’s doing very well, and he tells us all sorts of stories about the fun he has there.

As a parent it’s totally weird though – suddenly he’s spending time (six hours a week) in this world we do not control,  and hanging out with kids we’ve never met!  I think he (and we) will be fine.

At the time I thought three years seemed like a logical place to shift off monthly reporting and back to general good ol’ fashioned irregular blogging.

But looking back at the month posts I realized I’d probably want as many of them as possible later on in life.

So here we are with a boy who’s fourty-one months old.  One thing that’s new is his 41st month is his new love for Legos:

Gram and Pops shipped them up. Holding my old Legos again was pretty awesome, as was watching him spread them out on the floor and build little things.

Speaking of creative things, check out this Owl he and Kate made!

Here’s near 41-month old Ted at a car show.  He’s sitting inside a vintage Cadillac.  His love of cars seems pretty strong, and encourages me to “shift the gears!” when I drive. (Parenting pro-tip:  If some nice guy at a car show offers to let your 3-year old kid sit in their car and pretend to drive, make sure its at the end of the show, not the beginning.  Otherwise you spend the entire show trying to keep him out of other exhibitor’s cars.)

Here’s Ted and Kate talking with Auntie Christine on Skype. He’s holding a cardboard cutout of a cell phone, and claims to have “Gmail and Email.” He’s already got multiple email accounts!

What else is going on?

* Ted starts preschool in September! Two days a week for now. How did that happen so quickly?

* Ted fully embrace his impending big-brotherhood.  He’s quite ready for a younger sibling, and promises to share his toys.

* He experienced his first earthquake last week, on 8/23/11. It was a 5.9 on the Richter scale.

Here’s Ted posing with one of the cats.

Almost-three-year-old Ted got two visits just before his birthday.  One from his Gram and one from his Auntie Christine.  There were lots of cupcakes in our house last month.

Recent Ted stats:

* Can open the refridgerator on his own.

* Has ridden a Power Wheels.  He’s not quite ready for the open road yet.

* He’s not as into trying new foods, unless he’s really hungry.  He’ll now eat an entire kiddie-sized burrito from Moe’s.

* Can handle some pretty tough puzzles.

* When reading, he can sound out some words, sometimes… sort of… we think? Tough to tell because he memorizes a ton of books.

* Digs watching baseball, but isn’t quite sitting-in-a-chair-for-9-straight-innings just yet.  Still likes playing baseball.

Saving money on diapers.  It’s wonderful.

Here’s a photo of him sporting his favorite baseball hat these days and a Valentine’s day t-shirt from Auntie Christine, and drawing with chalk in our driveway, which he loves to do. He also loves playing baseball in our yard and can hit the whiffle ball when pitched to him (sometimes) and can run bases we put out.

Below is a photo of Ted looking pretty cosmopolitan at our local Dunkin Donuts.  Ted does love a good donut.  Makes me remember when my folks use to get me donuts on weekend mornings long ago.  It also makes me wonder what Ted will remember from this time in his life.   Good thing he’ll have this fancy internet website to look back on and see how things changed from year to year.

And here’s Ted playing with play-doh, a skill he’ll need to master in life.  Speaking of skills, he’s been picking them up at music class again.  He does dig dancing still!  He and Kate and I had a dance party here just the other night.  And speaking of learning new skills, we signed him up for preschool!  He’ll start in September going a few days a week.

We think he’ll be reading any day now.  He knows the letters, he knows they match up with sounds, and now when we read him stories, he’ll recite them out loud with us, word for word.

He’s still doing the toilet-training thing, and doing pretty well.  We’ve even gone taken the plunge and gone diaper-free at night with mostly good results!  We’ve past the candy/sticker-for-every-flush period and now trying to help him master the mysteries of the zipper fly.

What will we do with all the money we save on diapers?  (Pay for preschool).

His baseball love is real.  The other night he was watching a tv show and the characters suggested that he join their superhero group.  Ted broke down into tears, fearful that pledging his allegiance to The Wonder Pets would prevent him from being a baseball player when he grows up.  We gotta get this kid to some ball games in the spring.

Thirty-four month old Ted spent his first full month sleeping in a big boy bed.  He did really well, only falling out a few times.  At first he seemed to be sleeping really well in it. During the past nights he’s figured out that he can stand up and roam free in his room.

Ted also spent part of his thirty-fourth month visiting his new handsome cousin Benjamin. He and Kate flew up to see him and Ben’s new family.   Ben is a cute kid, looks just like his brother did.  I can’t wait to meet him!  Kate and Ted had an action packed 9 days, visiting lots of people and helping out Kim and Anne and Jack.

Back home in North Carolina, Ted got to get out and play during a few warm days.  Here he is wearing his new bike helmet.  He can peddle his bicycle now, at least for short distances.  I think we’ll need to bring him out to the track so he can build up some real speed.

Here’s Ted helping me celebrate my 32nd birthday.  We celebrated a few days early (on his 34th monthaversery).  He does like cake.  He also is very thoughtful.  He was obsessed with the idea of getting me a Tyrannosaurus Rex toy for my birthday, dragging Kate to multiple stores to get just the right one.

In other Ted news:

* He had his third haircut.

*Ted really likes dinosaurs now, and the Dinosaur Train tv show.

*He weighs 38 pounds.

*He’s ok with my new obsession with Mexican food.  He like avocados, nachos, and rice.

*He’s starting to tell us long, elaborate stories.  Full on imagination stuff.