We just spent Thanksgiving in Dallas with Amy's clan. Steph and I are truly grateful to have such a wonderful sibling family to share our first holiday with the most wonderful addition to our family, Oliver.
He loved spending time with his cousins, and they adored him. Lily in particular was fascinated with Oliver, I think because she's obsessed with babies! We loved that the cousins got to spend time with each other. Its a surreal experience not only to have a child, but also to keep encountering these new experiences, like having a new child play with his twin sister's kids! Crazy.
Lily Monster
Thank you so much Blake and Amy for a wonderful time. It was nice to be able to have near-constant child/baby-talk. We needed it. Oliver is wonderful, but sometimes it gets hard and we need to hear stories of similar parent trials & tribulations. And you guys are good source for those. :).
Amy, you're a wonderful mother and are raising beautiful children, good job and thank you! Blake, you are a blast to hang out with, if not a bit dangerous with all the coffee and booze that ensues! Thanks for my sports fix.
Also - and this is Stephanie talking - thank you Amy for braving your first turkey. And not just a small turkey, that one, we'll both have leftovers for over a week... :)
In France we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, and I am so grateful to have a holiday to remind us that there are so many things to be grateful for. It probably has had a great impact on me since I moved to the US.
Ben and I joke that Oliver was not a human until he graduated from this 4th trimester. If you are wondering what I'm talking about, well, technically the human gestation period should be a year, but because human brains have evolved to be so big, baby has to come out earlier. As compared to animals who come out of their mother's belly pretty much walking, humans come a earlier requiring a lot more support to survive. Yesterday he turned 3 months so it's been one year from conception. He is definitely more aware and fun. See these videos:
As for our lives, after the possum episode with the chickens, we are now dealing with a new visitor and that one in our kitchen. A smart raccoon has figured out how to go through the 2 cat doors and eat our cat food. Even after we locked the door so the cats could only go out but not come back in, the raccoon figured out how to open the doors and visit us about 3 or 4 more times.
Big problem when we're out of town... Ben set up a trap outside. No raccoon in sight though. He must be so smart to avoid the trap. Stay tuned...
This weekend was supposed to be pretty chilled at home, working on some projects. On Saturday at 11:30am, Ben received a text from his brother; a photo of him holding lots of fish. At 1pm we were in the car with Oliver heading out to the Bay. Pretty proud about that one considering the amount of stuff we have to think about bringing for Oliver. We're getting good as this! Anyways, the last minute trip was worth it. 8 fishermen = 54 trouts. We brought 13 home. We had a feast with friends and froze a bunch. Looking forward to enjoying more fish tacos over the winter.
The moment we saw one of these door bouncy swings we knew that it was one toy/baby accessory that we wanted. We were excited and lucky to inherit one from a friend, and have begun to introduce Oliver to it. I think he has mixed feelings....control and not enough control. He usually lasts about 5 minutes before getting terribly upset. We're thinking of capturing this same footage every couple weeks or so and then splicing the segments together to form a progression of Oliver growing into it. We'll see if we get that ambitious. Here are a couple that we have so far.
Oliver has been well known for his frowning look, especially with my family on Skype.
Well, here is a proof he does smile, especially right after he eats and he is starting to look more like a little boy every day.... :)
When Oliver turned 2 months, we moved him from the bassinet right by my bed side, to the crib in his own room. The experiment was fairly successful since he's been waking up a lot less at night. Last night, he actually slept through until 5am. Woohoo!
Yesterday was Oliver's first Halloween. We didn't go all the way trick or treating but we happened to have a very cute outfit handed down from his aunt, Amy, and since it fit him perfectly we played the Halloween game in the afternoon with this little pumpkin costume.
I put on a wig so he wouldn't be left alone but also to go teach a yoga class. The theme was about knowing we all die one day and to let go of taking our lives so seriously. The students got a kick out of it...
