I think I am going to end up with a whole album full of photos that look like this. Whenever I lay N down anywhere, R grabs a couple blankets, cozies up and yells, "take a picture, Mommy!" This coming from the girl who usually turns her back whenever I bring the camera out. How can I refuse?!! What sweethearts.

Last week we spent the afternoon with a good friend at Blue Hill Farm and oh my gosh, we had so much fun! For being a city girl, R seems really at home with the animals and was so sweet and gentile and brave with all of them (though she didn't really care much for the chickens - particularly when they were picking at our toes!)

The animals are all mostly contained but there were a few litters of piglets who were small enough to squeeze under the fences and were running all over the field. What an adventure! We spent the good part of an hour running around with them and trying to get them comfortable enough with us to come close. And, it worked! 

Happy late Halloween! Even though this is technically R's 3rd Halloween, in a lot of ways it really felt like her first. It was the first time she requested the theme of her own costume ("Bunny. . .  No, a LOT of bunnies. . . No, a lot of bunnies and two butterflies. . . . No, a goat."), the first time she really noticed the costumes on other kids and the first time she did real trick-or-treating. She loved it and I have to say it made the whole thing way more fun for me too. Watching her have a total giggle fest at the Halloween parade was probably just as hilarious for me as it was for her.
And don't worry, we didn't forget the little one either. . .

Halloween has snuck up on me.  I kept telling myself, "oh, it's next week, you have so long, take your time. . . " and I just realized, no. All of our costume-centric activities happen this weekend, which means tomorrow, which means I have got some serious work to do. 

One of the new winter tops I made for R. I really love this fabric - it's a double gauze which makes it super soft and comfy, and the animals floating around just kill me with their cuteness. We call it her "secret bunny" top. 

It really is next to impossible to get a good shot of this lady lately, so I had to sneak my camera out while R was trying to coax a smile from the little one. 

R's little friends came over last week for pumpkin decorating. We had grand plans of actually carving something, but surprisingly none of the kids wanted to get their hands dirty with the goop and seemed uninterested in the idea of cutting them up. Luckily we had a back-up painting plan (thanks Grandma Judy!). It was a total success. 

One of the things about not keeping up with this blog is that I have a whole stack of projects I've finished but never photographed. I am going to try and make a permanent record of all this hard work in the coming weeks. Unfortunately R is not the easy model she used to be, and most photographs have to be backed with bribes of tattoos and play dough. Totally worth it.

New baby N turned one month last week. So big and still so little. She also had a clogged tear duct that finally healed, took the bottle for the first (second and third) time, and grew out of her basinet. So many milestones for such a mini gal.

Thank you everyone for your nice comments and emails and texts about the last post. I am happy to report that the major storm has passed for the moment and things have gotten much easier over the past few days. N is sleeping again and R seems to be in much better spirits. The true test will be Wednesday which is the one day of the week R is home from daycare and I juggle the two girls on my own. That seems to be when things get tricky. At least I can give R credit for being smart enough to get me at my most vulnerable. That's one clever cookie.

The first three weeks went so well, and the last three days have been so rough. R is still the sweetest big sister anyone could hope for, but the rest of life has been tricky. We've had a lot of tears over the last few days and I'm afraid she's feeling a general sadness about the change in the family dynamic. I'm trying to be as gentile as possible while still making sure life goes on in a fairly normal manner, but man, it's been hard. To make it all worse, little N has forgotten how to sleep on her own and is waking up every 45 minutes, day and night, in full crying mode, insisting on being held. Ahh, the joys of parenthood. Tomorrow we start again.

Poor little N. As is the case with almost every second child I know, pretty much everything that she has is second hand. From the bassinet she sleeps in at night to the teeny tiny socks we put on her feet - it's all been used before. I figured she needed at least one thing to call her very own - and I needed something to knit. 

I whipped up this little sweater in my last weeks of pregnancy. The pattern is the Baby Girl Fair Isle Cardigan from Purl Soho. I made mine in a combination of Anzula Squishy and a selection of Koigu Needlepoint Yarns. I didn't get a chance to put the button hole loops in, and now that N is born, I probably never will.

The girls. I am so happy with how well they are getting along. R is so gentle with N and seems to be adjusting so well. Thank goodness. It makes it all so much easier.

This little break I've taken has been way too long. And now, for some reason, just as my life has gotten busier than it's ever been, I've decided to come back and try to start again. What am I thinking?
New Baby N arrived two weeks ago and we are all just loving having her around. I guess with life this full, why not add one more thing to the pile?

I have heard from other parents that this was a possibility, but I always just thought, "oh no, that wouldn't work in our house", but consider me proven wrong. Yesterday I left Ruth for over 25 minutes of quiet, independent play at the bathroom sink. She washed her hands, she filled up cups, she splashed about. I, of course, couldn't resist the photo opportunity and ruined the whole thing. As soon as she saw the camera, R was through with the water and was glued to my side, begging to "see the baby". Ah well. At least I got the pictures, and next time I'll know to just leave her be.

I finally managed to finish, and even more impressive, photograph another of my Citronille patterns for R. I found the sleeves on this one a little tricky, so I'm not totally wild about how it turned out in the end - with some weird tugging and pulling around the shoulders - but R likes to wear it (after a period of much coaxing) and that makes me happy.

When R was a baby I would take pictures of everything: eating lunch, going for a walk, laying on the bed, doing nothing at all. The albums from her first few months are organized by week, with hundreds of photos in each. These day's I'm lucky if I take any pictures at all. I can partly blame the lady herself, who is far more interested in the technology these days and will promptly request to "see the baby" in the camera as soon as it comes out, before any pictures are taken. I am resolving to take more pictures in the coming months - to remind myself to take my camera out more, and to get the lady used to the lens.
These photos were taken the other morning while eating breakfast. Isn't that hair wild?!

We celebrated R's second birthday last week with two parties, two cakes and lots of balloons. It's hard to tell in these photos, but she was really excited about the whole thing. She's the last of her little baby friends to turn two and she's been going to other kids' birthdays for months. She couldn't believe it was actually time to sing happy birthday to her (and she made me do it about 50 times). It's so funny - she was such a serious baby, it was really hard to get a smile out of her for anything. She was always just staring, looking around, absorbing it all. She's not like that at all now. She's silly all the time, full of giggles and wackiness, but man does her serious side come out in moments like these. She was so straight faced with the cake and presents, like this was her job and she was going to make sure to do it right.
There were, of course, a few things that brought out a grin - I mean who can't help but smile when they try a harmonica for the first time?