two months

Our little man is now two months old.  I guess this is the time when you transition from talking about his ages in weeks to months, now that he's plural months old.  

TWO MONTHS!

I could almost smile about it!

Bo does smile often now, it's just hard to capture it in a photo, so you'll have to take my word for it.  Just in the past week he's started to become much more aware of his environment and loves looking at toys and people.  This is a big step up from the ceiling fan that occupied his attention for a month or so.  :)  Bo will lie on his back under the activity center that my mom brought for over 20 minutes, content to coo and wave his arms around, smacking the toys.  He makes the sweetest little cooing sounds.  It's so nice that he has another way of communicating now besides crying!  His schedule is becoming more predictable and he slept through the night for the fist time last week!  I woke up around 5:30 and waited an hour for him to cry.  He's made it to 5:00 am several times since then.  What a champ.  I'm not sure how big he is since we don't have an appointment until next week, but I put away the newborn clothes weeks ago and he's starting to stretch some of his 0-3 outfits now.  

It's hard to imagine life without him!  

strawberry picking

Before I moved to Long Island, I'd been nothing-picking.  In the last year, I've been raspberry picking, blueberry picking, blackberry picking, peach picking, and apple picking.  When my mom came for a visit last week, we added strawberry picking to the list.  

We headed out East to a farm I'd visited before, got our baskets from the farm stand, and marched out into the field.  I had Bo in a carrier and he squawked in protest every time I leaned over to pick a berry, so I stood around and snapped photos with my phone and watched my mom go to work.

   

There she is . . . That photo kind of reminds me of Christina's World.  Or maybe that's just because I saw it the other day at the MOMA? 

Don't be fooled by the above picture . . . I really only picked about 10 berries.

As opposed to the four quarts my mother amassed: 

By the time we got home after perusing antique stores and outfitting Bo for the next five years at the outlet mall, the berries were a little riper and the car smelled like Lip Smackers.  What do you do with four quarts of strawberries?

  

 strawberry muffins:

strawberry shortcake:

And most recently, strawberry ice cream.  The strawberry stash has officially been depleted and we have all officially gained five pounds.  

eight weeks

Eight weeks on June 15.  Better late than never! 

get it together

I've realized lately that whenever I start to think I've got it together, that's when things start to unravel before my eyes.  I'm better off going in with minimal expectations, prepared for the worst, and then I can be satisfied we made it through or even pleasantly surprised that something good was accomplished.  Today, for example, I was convinced I'd get nothing done (since I feel like I've achieved nothing so far this week).  I laid awake from 4:00-5:00 am after feeding the baby, trying not to worry about the conflicting schedules of the tree guys who were coming to work at our house and the driveway guys who are paving at our neighbor's house and will be blocking our road, or the fact that it'll be in the 90's today and Bo, Moose, and I will probably roast like turkeys in the inferno of our unair-conditioned home.  So it's safe to say I had really low expectations of the day . . . but here I sit, at noon, having checked so many things off my to-do list that I can sit around and eat bon-bons until Matt gets home, like I usually do. (ha)

(reading)

This week Matt started his long days, leaving between 4:30 and 6:30 in the morning, so it's been my first real taste of stay-at-home-mom-ness.  We are both SO grateful for God's gift of a great schedule right when we needed it, when the baby was first born.  And now, we're doing ok.  But I am continually amazed at how long it takes me to get simple tasks done.  At least the days go by quickly, with me scrambling around trying to keep up with the hours.  Today, however, I've beat the odds and managed to get the baby bathed, groceries purchased, dinner in the crockpot, the guest bed made, and eaten both breakfast and lunch, all by 12:30.  And so far it's not unbearably hot.  Pats on the back for me.  Kisses for the baby who is actually napping.

(blue eyes)

Bo is pretty great, he's sleeping longer at night (8 hours once!), and generally a pretty predictable baby.  This leads me to believe I can just throw him in the car and take him wherever I want.  However, I'm beginning to think he's not as portable as he looks.  Last week I wanted to buy some baby gifts, so I popped the baby in his car seat and brought him along.  When we got to the store, I realized that his pacifier pod, which snaps to the side of his car seat and is always stocked with two pacifiers, was nowhere to be found.  I decided we'd be ok.  Bo sat serenely in his stroller for the first five minutes while I looked at onesies and then I heard the alarming sound of the creation of a dirty diaper.  (As a side note, it is amazing how such a small person can make a) so much noise and b) so much mess.)  I whisked him to the bathroom at once in an effort to fend of his cries and changed his diaper, deciding to leave on his outfit even though there was a little bit of poopy on it.  I rationalized that he'd be in his seat the whole time so no one would see it and it would be easier to change him at home.  Well . . . then he got tired and started to wail, and I had no pacifier, so I had to hold him to calm him down while I tried to cover up the poopy spot and simultaneously prop up his head with one hand and franticly pawed through baby clothes with the other.

When we left I detoured through the Starbucks drive-thru to reward myself for getting through that experience.  And then Bo proceeded to cry all the way home.  Repeat poopy performance at Target this week, by the way.  Except this time I had his pacifier, but boy, do cries reverberate in the restroom.  But our Target is putting in a Starbucks, so I can see that helping in future situations.

 (my trip to the post office)

Anyway, I know it's all part of parenting a baby.  But I am really thankful we've only got one baby at the moment.  

One very lovable baby.  

And one hot dog.  

seven weeks

strong man. 

the best kind of friends

On our trip to Cleveland, we were able to see some very special friends, Todd and Allyson Nagle and their two little ones.  We met in Kenya and spent a lot of time together. . . watching our American shows at night, making massive bowls of ice cream with the excuse that it was justified by the 2 hours Todd and I had spent running earlier for our marathon training. . . the kind of friends who didn't charge gas money for a ride to Nairobi and who you could burst in on at 7:30 in the morning to tell you were engaged.  Good times.  

 The last time we saw them was at our wedding, and Ava was 13 months old with some wispy hair . . . this time around, she was a giggly ball of energy with a personality that matched her little ringlets.  

And we hadn't met Ty yet, but he's already a year old.  All their kids come complete with beautiful blue eyes . . . I'm sure #3 will be no exception!

We enjoyed a raucous meal and walked back to our hotel for some more quality time on the floor in the lobby.

Ty kept trying to swipe Bo's pacifier to add to his growing collection.

We talked about their recent trip back to Kenya and future plans and just enjoyed being together.  I got pooly when they left . . . it's hard not knowing when we'll be together again.    Within yelling distance of their house suits me better.

Trying to take a group picture was pretty challenging...

This is the best we got!  

We luv the NagleBagles 4eva.

great grandpa's 85th birthday party

We had an eventful Memorial Day weekend, traveling to Cleveland to celebrate a special birthday.  Matt's grandpa turns 85 this year and the whole family and many of his old friends got together to celebrate.  Of course it was good timing to introduce our new little family member.  I enjoyed meeting a couple of Matt's cousins for the first time and also getting to know some family members a little better, beyond a hello at our wedding. :)

Bo met his cousins, Evan and Connor.  

And we forced the crying baby on Adam for a bit . . . 

Bo had a really handsome little outfit to wear to the party.  

My two men:

(baby loafers!!)

Connor and Bo played really well together.  

Martha and Evan:

The grandkids each wrote a special lesson they had learned from their grandpa and shared them in front of the group.  It was very touching, I got pooly.  

The Yezerskis, around their patriarch.  I'm making this one extra large so you can see the uncanny family resemblance.  Strong genes!  

Matt's great-grandparents both immigrated from Poland.  We enjoyed a meal of foods I'd never heard of before we got married but am a little more familiar with now!  Kielbasa, pierogis, buhanti, golabki, pork chops, potato pancakes . . . all with a liberal amount of butter.  There was also a man on an accordion to serenade the polka dancers.  Matt and I danced our second dance of our relationship - the polka.  The first being at our wedding.  You don't get a lot of dancing in when you meet in Kijabe.

And when the accordion got old . . .

The man of the hour! 

 Four generations of Yezerskis:

Bo did so well on our travels!  He slept soundly through all four of our flights, for which I am SO thankful (me and all the other passengers).  He slept a lot last weekend, actually.  He is not sleeping half as much now that we're home!  Go figure . . .