He’s been a big-brother for two months now and seems to be handling it a little better now.  I suspect the fact that he and Kate and Sarah are usually booked up with school and social activities daily helps take the edge off of no-longer-being-the-sole-recipient of our attention.

His forty-sixth month brought him a few visitors.  First his playgroup pals stopped in for an morning of hanging out and sharing toys. Then last weekend Auntie Christine stopped by to swing Ted in circles (and maybe snuggle with Sarah a bit).  Then just the other day  Hike Club charter member Scott and his girlfriend stopped in to deliver some prizes.  It’s nice that we live so far away and still somehow get a ton of visitors!

Below is a picture of Ted doing his best not to eat the cake placed in front of him.  He and Kate made it to celebrate cousin Ben’s first birthday, even though Ben is 750 miles away.  Just because you’re using skype doesn’t mean you can’t have cake!

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.

And the big news this week is that Sarah is most likely allergic to cow’s milk protein.  We found some blood in her diaper and took her to the doctor.  She hasn’t been particularly fussy.  You would think that if she is having that much intestinal distress she would be screaming her head off, but she isn’t.  Apparently it could take up to two weeks for the dairy to clear my system and hers, so we won’t know if my elimination of dairy is helping until then.  If she is still having symptoms after two weeks, then I take her back to the doctor and also cut out soy.  Luckily this type of allergy is something she should grow out of by her birthday and isn’t related to any dairy allergy she may have later in life.

Cutting out dairy is hard.  Thank goodness Sarah is so cute and gives me a huge smile every time she sees my face.

Other big news is that she had her first bottle this past weekend!

Here are some pictures from Sarah’s last bath.

Here’s me hoisting up Ben’s brother Jack and his cousin Ted while we were at the science museum.  Jack is pretty darn awesome, too and hanging with him and Ted is lots of fun.

She is a very accommodating baby.  She is happy to go wherever Ted and I are going during the day or wherever we are all going during nights and weekends.  She does have a thing about red lights though.  She hates them and lets us all know about it.  She is also rather fussy in the mornings when I have to get ready for the day instead of holding her.  She also frequently is fussy in the evenings when Ted is getting ready for bed. In the evenings no amount of holding her stops the anxiety.  But (so far) she is not the type to scream without stopping.  There is generally some intense arm waving and loud heavy breathing punctuated with yells.  Then we calm her down for a few minutes with walking her around and singing and then repeat the whole process over and over.  Overall she is a pretty calm happy baby though.

Something else worth mentioning is Zoe’s overwhelming need to sit on this baby.  She is quite crazy about it.  Like a duck determined to hatch an egg.  I let Zoe sit with us but that is not enough.  She is constantly inching closer trying to get on top of Sarah.  I have to hold her away and if I move my hand she is instantly moving in.  It is quite comical when Ted joins in and I have Ted, Sarah, and Zoe all on my lap at once.

We continued tracking Ted’s life (although we missed a few months) and started tracking Sarah’s life.

Ted is 34 35 36 | 41 42 43 44 45 months old

Sarah is 1 2 3 4 weeks and 1 month old

Twenty eleven started off well, with Ted doing well with potty training and sleeping in his big boy bed all through the night. He also got to fly up north with Kate and meet his new cousin Ben.

In March we had two visitors, first Gram flew up to spend some quality time and then Auntie Christine arrived the following weekend. Christine hung around for Ted’s awesome 3rd birthday party and for his first baseball game at NC State.

April was fairly average at first, but turned awful at the end of the month when Kate’s mom Cass became ill and passed away on Easter.  None of us were prepared for it, and it’s had a huge impact on our family. Everyone here misses her.

Blogging in May and June took a back seat to a lot of travel, dealing with emotions, and me changing jobs for what I hope is the last time for a while. One high-note of June was getting to meet our new niece Abigail who joined Uncle Josh and Auntie Kristen’s family.  Abigail is funny and super-cute.

In July there was more travel up north, and then my folks motorcycled their way up here to spend some time with us.  In August cousin Cory came by for a visit and got to bond with her NC family a little.  Ted and I also go to have a guys weekend in August while Kate flew up north.

In September our boy started preschool! He looks like he’s ten in his backpack. We also had a visit from our friend Scott, making his first trip to the After Victory homestead.  We also made a trip out to western NC to visit aunts Deirdre and Jackie, which was lots of fun.

October was rough – my grandfather got pretty sick and passed away.  Not only was it super-sad, but I had to leave my very pregnant wife at home to fly up to the funeral, which made me nervous the whole time on top of sad.   (Of course my concerns were pretty unwarranted, as Sarah was born 8 days past her due date!).

In November we did a lot of waiting!  Lucky for us we had a lot of family in town to keep us entertained.  Ted was very busy - taking a sibling how-to class, as well as performing Thanksgiving songs at his preschool.  The most exciting part of November was Sarah’s actual arrival which came on the 30th.

December was filled with some very helpful family visiting, and a lot of us adjusting to having a new member of our family in the house. Auntie Christine set some sort of visiting record by being at our place twice in a 3-week span.  Christmas day was spent with friends, instead of traveling far-far away like we’ve done the past few years. It was great, Ted got a bunch of very cool stuff and it’s hard to not be happy about Christmas with the enthusiasm of a three-year-old boy around.

There’s lots I’m forgetting – we had more family visits than I wrote down, I think.

After a year like this, we are grateful to have friends and family who care about us, support us, and humor us by reading our goofy blog posts.  I hope 2012 is good to us, and good to you.

Previous Years Reports:
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003

Yesterday I took Sarah to her one month well check.  She is now 10lbs 11.5oz!  She has been able to hold her head up for awhile now, but she has been doing it for longer stretches this week.  Also while we had seen fleeting smiles here and there before, this week she seems to be really smiling in response to things.

Also, Sarah got to wear the ‘My entire life is being blogged’ shirt we got for Ted (but was too small by time we tried to pull it over his head).  The shirt rings as true for her as it does for Ted, even if the idea of blogging has fallen in popularity.

PS: Thanks Pops and Gram!

PPS: Pics from a few weeks ago, she hasn’t shrunk.