Date Nights

With my parents leaving 3 weeks after Mikaela was born, Austin and I didn't think we'd have a chance to get out for any date nights. But we've actually been on two date nights and Mikaela is only 7 wks old. Definitely a better track record than what we had with Naomi.
For our first date night, our awesome friend Soo-Jin volunteered to take both girls the Saturday before Valentine's day. So Austin and jumped at the opportunity to go see a movie and try a new restaurant (Soo-Jin even recommended a fantastic restaurant!).
While we were out relaxing without the girls, Soo-Jin worked her charms on Naomi and had her working on an art project, Naomi's absolute favorite activity. She worked on painting a heart shaped box, which she still lovingly carries around with her today. In Naomi's 2.5 years of life, we've only ever had one non-family member babysit Naomi, and that was her daycare teacher. So naturally I was worried at how things would go, especially since Naomi isn't exactly Miss Personality when it comes to hanging out with people outside of her everyday routine. But Soo-Jin won her over and with the exception of a meltdown at bedtime, they had a great time. Mikaela, in true to her nightowl routine, slept for most of the evening until after Naomi had gone to bed, and was wide awake, ready to party when we got home.

Dinner at Rebecca's

We went on our second date night when Austin's mom and sister were here. They graciously told us to go out one night, so we went to Morimoto's to try the yummy Omakase.

It was definitely a treat to get out and I'm eagerly awaiting our next overnight visitors so we can use them again for babysitting services =)

Blurry Dinner at Morimoto's...notice my hair is 12 inches shorter

Another view of my new haircut (another bonus of having my mother-in-law and sister-in-law visiting was a trip to the hair salon)

She's lucky she's so cute...

We've been borrowing DVDs and books from the library pretty frequently these days since I have more time to drop by and pick stuff up. One of Naomi's dvd's was due back today, "Dora's First Day of School". This morning I spent around 30 minutes looking frantically for the case to the DVD before we headed out to daycare. I asked Naomi if she knew where it was, and she said, "Nope" and then went back to playing games on Austin's iPad.
Finally about to give up, I brought up an empty DVD case hoping to use it as a substitute. Naomi took a look at it and said, "Oh, you can put the Dora DVD in there ok?"
Before we left I did a final sweep in our TV room and double checked under the couch, where I finally found the darn thing. I jumped up and said, "Naomi, I found it!!!" I was obviously excited.
She looked at me, smiled and said, "yea I was playing with it on the couch!"
grrrr

Lazy Monday

We had a slow start this moning.

Photo Editing

One of the many talents Austin has that I wish I possessed is photography and photo editing. He has a natural eye for that kind of stuff, whereas I just don't.

While on maternity leave I've been trying to pick up a little photo editing technique. Here's an attempt using Light Room. I only adjusted some of the colors and edging. I don't know how to edit blemishes (yet) although I did hide a huge scratch Mikaeala had on her cheek. But I did it by randomly pushing buttons in the editing tool bar....nothing fancy but here it is!

Sleep does the body good

We're finally on the mend. Naomi is completely better and both Mikaela and I are congested, but definitely on the road to recovery. As she gets better, Mikaela is starting to sleep better as well. For the last 3 nights she's slept in her own room in her crib and hasn't needed to be held. Yesterday for the first time she napped in her crib as well, and even fell asleep on her own.
Today I'm home with both girls, and Mikaela is already on her second nap of the day, in her crib, freeing me up to umm blog, I mean watch Naomi. It's nice to be on the road to getting her on a sleep schedule, and it's definitely amazing what a difference it makes for me when I can get a few more consecutive hours of sleep at night.

Other than sleeping better, Mikaela continues to hit milestone after milestone. She's already been smiling and coo'ing, but is doing so more frequently now, and two days ago she started laughing a little bit. It's the cutest thing.

Naomi has done a lot of growing up as well. She is completely in love with her baby sister, and affectionately gives her kisses and strokes her face, hands and feet. She loves to try and include her in games and is constantly running over to check on "mei mei" when she hears her crying. She's actually really great at getting Mikaela to stop crying. The sweetest thing is when I've found her stroking Mikaela's hand singing her "Misty" her own lullaby that Austin or I sing to her every night.
She's also starting to grow incredibly protective of her Mei Mei as well. She'll sometimes call Mikaela "her baby". Yesterday while picking her up from daycare, some of the kids in her class, as usual, ran over to see the sleeping baby. Naomi saw them, came over, pulled the shade over MIkaela's car seat and said, "I don't want anyone to look at MY baby. She's sleeping". Then she walked away.

I have to say, I'm more tired now than I ever have been. It's almost 11am and I'm still in sweats and a sweater. Our house is a complete mess, and I've played candy land so much that I dream about lollipops and double color cards. However I'm completely loving having two girls right now. There really isn't any other need to explain other than to say I'm incredibly blessed.

Mikaela mid-laugh

Twist and Shout

Overheard at dinner...

Austin: Naomi, do you know what The Beatles sing?
Naomi: No. Daddy, do you know what Ariel (the little mermaid) sings?