All uphill from here

This past week has been even better. I am definitely hitting my stride in my new "two kid" world. Josie continues to adjust to Adam (and his crying spells) and I am even starting to find time to eat and shower. This is great!

In the meantime, here are a few photos of the brood from the past week.

Benjamin Button takes his first bath in a tub- no more sponge baths for this little guy! (And why is it that newborn boys all look like little old men?)

Thanks for covering up my parts, Mom!

Josie has been really into all things baby and she and her baby have been inseparable. On Saturday, Josie and I went to the park. I pushed Adam in his stroller, and Josie pushed her baby in her toy stroller. Josie is also fascinated by the baby bjorn, so when she discovered her baby's carrier could be worn like a baby bjorn, she was psyched!

Josie carrying her baby around everywhere she goes, just like Mommy and Adam!

Look what Russ does when I leave the room for one minute. I expect there will be many more pictures like this to come!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

Today is a great day for the Johnson family because Josie is FINALLY recovered from her week-long flu (the worst flu she's ever had- great timing, kid!) that also infected Russ and me. And with fevers subsided, we actually pulled ourselves together enough to celebrate the holiday!

Yesterday Josie and I dyed eggs for the first time- no plastic eggs this year. Josie did a great job and only stained her shirt a little. :)

Before bed we set out her awesome eggs with some carrots and a little water for the Easter Bunny. Let the fun begin!

We knew we did not have it together enough to get all the family dressed and to Church, but Josie was too excited about wearing her Easter dress. So we got her all dressed up and let her dance around the house a bit. Then we went outside to look for eggs!

Hottie 2.0 gets in on some Easter fun by staying awake for more than 10 minutes. Way to go Adam!

Let the search begin!

Finding eggs....

Adam partakes in a little Easter Egg hunting. Too bad he's pretty much sleeping through it...

Searching for eggs is tiring....

The most hilarious egg- for some reason Josie was incapable of finding this last egg. Russ took a picture of her practically standing on it, yet still not seeing it!

Victory! All eggs are found and back in the house. Only a few casualties... every time Josie found one, she would spike it down into her basket in celebration. I don't think she really grasped the whole "real eggs are fragile" thing...

A successful first holiday as a family of four!

Welcome Home Baby Adam!!!

Tomorrow is Adam's 3 week birthday, and I can't believe how fast these past few days have gone! Its far past time to post pictures of my little man, so here they are. Feast your eyes on this stud muffin!

He's just so cute and snuggly in his bouncy seat!

Wide awake and checking out his new home (and listening to his sister talking!) He always looks so serious!

Josie has been totally into her new baby brother! After a few days she has gotten used to the crying, and while she definitely is adjusting to having less attention, she doesn't take it out on Adam. She wants to kiss him and "help" me take care of him all the time!

A little male bonding time. Russ is so excited that he will not spend the rest of his life surrounded by females!

Tummy time!

Favorite Josie Quote of the Day

To set the stage: Mom and Josie were listening to music during dinner.

Josie: Who is singing this song?
Mom: Its a band called Interpol.
Josie: Hey!! Santa lives in Interpol!!!

Russ and I are the greatest parents ever- too bad Josie didn't notice

Well folks, I am pregnant and cranky. Real pregnant. And REAL cranky. And I think I am driving everyone near me crazy with my bad attitude (read: Russ). So on Sunday, Russ decided he needed to get me out of the house. So, after reading the crapload of "preparing your child for the new baby" materials we got from the hospital, we decided to do an all out "Big Sister Extravaganza" for Josie.

We decided we would first take Josie to Target and let her pick out a new toy- anything she wanted. This is something we have never done before. Then we planned to take her to a totally kid-friendly restaurant and fill her up with amazing kid food. Maybe she'd even get dessert. I mean, this is big time.

We got Josie up from her nap and gave her an amazing speech. "Josie, we are so proud of you for being such a big girl! You are such a good girl, and now you are even going to be a big sister!!!" We poured it on thick. We told her about getting a new toy at Target. Then we paused and waited for the excitement and adoration to flow. Then Josie noticed a book had fallen off her book shelf and went to go straighten it. Then she asked Russ if he would read her one of her old Highlights magazines. Hmm.

So we left for Target. Josie was not thinking about new toys, but demanding we play Elvis CD's during the drive. Then she was demanding we play the CORRECT Elvis CD's during the drive. And at the correct volume. Serenity now!

We get to Target. Josie is now totally psyched, as are we. We never spoil her like this, and buying her a non-Christmas or Birthday present seemed like an awesome adventure. She had the pick of the store and lots of time to choose. New Barbie??? Sweet Disney Princess action set??? Fairy Costume??? The options are endless!!! But for what does Josie make a beeline? The odd wall of 3-inch plastic animals. Under the section that sells creepy Dragons, Lords, and Gargoyles. She is now literally lying on the floor of target playing with a creepy plastic swan-thing and frickin' loving it. After an hour, we left Target with a baby tiger, baby coyote, kangaroo, and horse. Wow.

Now was the next phase of our extravaganza-- dinner. As many of you know, Russ and I are ardent vegetarians, and have been for nearly a decade. And we are raising Josie vegetarian as well. However, we are conscious of giving Josie a well-rounded childhood and recognize that- to our disgust- this must include Happy Meals. So that's right folks-- we took her to McDonald's.

We ordered Josie a Happy Meal and let the fun begin. She did totally love it. She went all out on the fries and even ate half a hamburger (yikes). Yet again she baffled us, as instead of loving the other kids and the crappy food, she seemed more into the fact that there was a baseball game on tv in the corner. ("Look Daddy, Baseball players!!!!!" Baffling!)

All was redeemed at the end of the dinner when Russ bought her a sweet vanilla twist cone. It was the size of her head, and took a lot of help from Daddy to eat it all, but it was probably the most exciting moment of Josie's life. And Josie's total love of the random plastic animals did warm our hearts a bit. So while Josie may not have grasped the "special-ness" of the night, and the occasion, at least it was a great night for us.

Josie eats the greatest ice cream cone ever! (Note her plastic animals on the table...)

Victory! Day is finally confirmed as the greatest- thanks to a little ice cream!

Brace yourself for something high-tech

My friends Anna and Jill came to visit me last week to take pity on the poor pregnant lady with no access to the outside world. Jill brought her new-fangled digital camera that also takes video and made this little clip of Josie doing more sweet ballet moves. I am attempting to post it here, but seeing as I have very poor computer skills, we'll see if it works!

Boredom, nesting, and too much HGTV

I am officially 18 days from the induction date for ole baby Johnson. And as I have not been to work in three weeks, I have way too much time to sit around and generally panic about the fact that there will soon be another baby in this house!

The other night Russ and I sat down and really thought about how we were going to make our condo-- which used to seem big, hahahaha-- adapt to 2 kids and an enormous amount of kid STUFF. After talking about it, arguing about it, and trying to ignore it, we decided to try something crazy. We are turning our sun room into the baby's room!

Russ and I immediately went into mourning, because the sun room is our favorite part of the house. But after thinking about this a lot, I do think it makes sense. At least until I win the HGTV Dream Home Give-Away.

Please indulge me as I show some pictures of our new "renovation":

The first step was taking all baby stuff out of Josie's room and re-arranging everything. We put all the things (including the couch!) that used to be in the sun room in Josie's room and basically made this the coolest bedroom ever.

(Note the 35 stuffed animals on her bed that she sleeps with EVERY night! Also, yes... that's an Elvis poster by her bed. She LOVES Elvis, which is so gold.)

Without the baby stuff in here, there was a ridiculous amount of space, which is awesome! And who wouldn't want a kitchen in their room?

The second step was putting all the baby stuff in the sun room. Again, there was more space in here than we originally thought, too. We easily fit the crib, changing table, and a rocking chair.

Russ's Mom is coming this weekend to help me sew some thick curtains to keep out any drafts and hopefully some of the noise from the street. We will also make a curtain of some sort to separate this room from the living room when baby is sleeping. The final step is when I get to go shopping for a cute rug.

So there it is! Is it white trash to turn a sun room into a baby's room? I hope not. Is it a resourceful use of space? I hope so! If nothing else, its a great project that is keeping me from re-grouting the bathroom and generally driving Russ crazy with nesting related to-do lists. So I guess if that's all this accomplishes, that's still a good thing.