It's been a fun couple of days here. Larissa is one month old today, and she rolled from her tummy onto her back over the weekend - all by herself! Addi learned to whistle today, and has been creating artistic masterpieces for everyone around, when she's not busy marrying a prince, that is. Brendon will be 34 on Wednesday! And I've lost 25 of the 35 lbs. of pregnancy weight - this last 10 may be a bit harder though ;)

Our newest family member, Larrisa, arrived on September 4th at 7:15pm, only 17 minutes after I arrived at the hospital and got in my gown! It was quite a whirlwind experience, contractions started 5 minutes apart and within an hour and a half she was here, totally naturally. My cousin Bill and his family helped me get to the hospital, while Brendon hurriedly exited the first KU football game of the year to meet us at the hospital. He arrived just after I did, which was good. The doctor on call was Dr. Durland, and she bounded into the room with much enthusiasm and confidence that I could do it naturally and quickly, and she was right. It was an amazing experience.

Larissa is a wonderful baby so far. She was 7lb, 6 oz when she was born and, after two weeks, is already up to 8lb, 4oz! She is seldom fussy, sleeps pretty well at night and seems to go with the flow very easily, even when big sister insists on hugging and kissing all over her. She looks very much like Addi did as a baby so far. We all love her very much and can't wait to see what she will be like as she grows and learns more every day.

I can't believe it's been almost a year since i last blogged. And wow, so much has happened in a year!

First, we celebrated Derek and Andrea's wedding last September with a wonderful group of family and friends. It was such a beautiful day/weekend! Unfortunately, we lost my sweet cat Sammy to cancer soon after, and we still miss him every day. We did visit the Humane Society in October for Brendon's birthday though and now have Nelson (a long-haired black and white tabby), who has made a wonderful addition to our family. Brendon and I visited Australia last November and got to see many friends and places I hadn't seen in five years. It was a great trip! And speaking of additions to the family, as a Christmas present we found out Addi would be a big sister when we got a positive pregnancy test on Christmas Eve. In February, Addi turned 3 and she started preschool at Raintree Montessori this June - hard to believe she's so grown up. She still misses her old babysitter Amy, who was truly wonderful, but has had a blast at school this summer, swimming and playing with her new friends every day. We also moved to a new house this summer after about 6 months of looking, but we're in now and really like the neighborhood. I could do without the voles in the yard though - still trying to teach Nelson how to catch them. We took a road-trip with Mick and Linda to Colorado for a wedding in June. Then flew to Seattle for another wedding weekend in July. And, after much painting around the new house and an impromptu family reunion, Brendon had back surgery last week, which went very well. Add in the normal mix of work and day to day stuff, and the fact that the new baby's due any day now and that pretty much brings us up to date. :)

Addi has been so much fun this past year. She's so smart and sensitive, and is very excited about the fact that she's getting a sister. She has suggested that we name her either Belle or Thumbelina (still thinking on those). She also loves the fact that our doctor "looks like Aunt Andrea." She hugs, kisses and talks to my belly all the time. So, I think little sis will know her immediately when she arrives. We can't wait - now I just need to finish repainting the nursery...

Congratulations to Brendon on Graduation! We had a great weekend in Philly - complete with graduation activities, campus tour, city tour, lunch in Chinatown, hamming it up like Rocky and lots of fun comments by Addi. Every time I go under a bridge with her now, I am sure to hear "Duck your head" thanks to this trip ;-)