{this moment}

{this moment} à la SouleMama - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

{this moment}

{this moment} à la SouleMama - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Nora: Three Months Old

I cannot believe that three whole months have gone by since this sweet little girl was born.

This girl, who is so mellow, so content to be on her belly, so able to roll onto her belly (what?!), so happy to smile at us and chat with us.

(That outfit? That was my outfit, a gift from my sweet godmother. How fun to be able to put it on my girl!)

This girl, who has completely grown out of newborn prefolds and is comfortably in bumGenius diapers, and almost comfortably in medium-size prefolds, and who has grown out of nearly all of her three-month clothes.

This ever-growing girl, who has stolen our hearts and doubled the joy in this house.

We are so thankful for the gift that is our sweet Nora Lorraine. So incredibly thankful.

Nora: Two Months Old

Another entire month has gone by, and I (surprise!) just can't believe it. Our sweet baby girl is getting even bigger: twelve pounds five ounces as of Wednesday afternoon, to be exact. She's already outgrown all of her newborn and some 0-3 month clothes; she probably could have just started out in 0-3 and they wouldn't have been too roomy for long. Maybe the three- and six-month clothing (yes, she's already in some six-month clothing!) will get to stick around a bit longer. Her little diapers are on the verge of being too small; when they are, she'll be in the same diapers as AJ. That makes her seem way too big, so we're sticking with the little diapers as long as we can. Silly, but true.

In the last few weeks, she's started smiling and making sweet little noises at us. I love it, and I really need to record a few seconds of her little smiles and little sounds so that, once I've forgotten, I can look back and remember again. Half of me finds it hard to believe that one day it will be so difficult to recall these early months and the little things; the other half of me knows how little I really remember of AJ's days as a little baby, and so I know that these days too will become a blur, remembered mostly by the photographs we've taken.

I hope we can find that balance between documenting these days well and staying present in the moment, enjoying this fleeting time with these precious little people who have been entrusted to our care. I don't want these days to simply pass us by for all of our busyness, rushing, and should-dos. Instead, I hope we can re-prioritize, refocus, and put people - those in our family and those outside of it - first, always.

"Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least." - Goethe

Second Child, Indeed

When AJ was a baby, he could always be found in our arms, in his little baby seat, in the pack-n-play bassinet, or in his crib. You know, the places where babies are "supposed" to be. While Nora can often be found in our arms, she's also be frequenting some, uh, less conventional locales. If you've never used the laundry basket as a safe resting place for baby while you're helping big brother on the potty/hanging wet clothes/braiding your hair/insert-any-other-two-handed-activity-here, I highly recommend it. Nora seems to like it, too. Really.

A Month Already

I can't believe that it was a whole month ago that our sweet baby girl joined our family; how is that possible? It's been a wonderful month, and really everything has been easier and more enjoyable than we expected. Every day Nora seems more alert and interested in what's going on around her, and every day the little rolls on her thighs and arms seem to get just a little bit bigger. She's been sleeping for about a six hour stretch at night recently, which, while surely temporary, is fantastic. She weighed in at 10 pounds 8 ounces when we visited our midwife on Friday, and measured 22 inches long. That's a three pound nine ounce gain (more than half of her birth weight!) in four-and-a-half weeks. It's so odd that she already doesn't seem to be as much like a newborn anymore, but I guess in light of that significant growth, it's a little more understandable. She reminds us a lot of her brother so much of the time, more, I think, as the days go by.

Nora Lorraine at one month:

Andrew James at one month (and a few days):

Our girl:

Even the toughest moments of this past month have been so wonderful, with this tiny little person in our lives. The coming months will pass much too quickly, I'm sure, so I'm trying to soak in her littleness as much as I can, in hopes that I might remember her being small a bit better than I do AJ. We're in no rush for you to grow up, baby girl.

December 24th

Our big plans this Christmas Eve were to take the bus to the Honolulu Zoo, and boy did it make for a memorable day. We had gone in April for AJ's second birthday, and I never would have guessed that eight months would make such a difference in how much AJ would enjoy it; I think this was the most obvious example of how much he's grown up that we've had in quite awhile. He was so much more into all of the animals, asked so many questions, and just had the best time. It was a fantastic way to spend the day, and having Mimi and Papa there made it all the more special.

That's how you know it was a good day. Ha!