Noah's had a great week with Mommy or Daddy most days. And this weekend he's lying (or propped up, or on Daddy's shoulder, or Mommy's lap) in the warm sunshine. Lots of play, and he's more and more aggressively grabbing and holding and reaching for things. His favorites lately seem to be a multicolor spider doll and a bee that jingles and crinkles. (Is "crinkling" a new sound feature of toys? Pretty cool and easy for little hands to manipulate - easier than making bells ring and I think it also makes a better connection of action-response for him as well.) His latest favorite is the big, bright team logo on Daddy's Orlando Solar Bears hockey jersey that Uncle Corey gave him last year. Lots and lots of vocalization - we have "conversations" often now. While I know we're supposed to use full sentences usually, it really is fun to respond to his noises by mimicing. Daddy really has fun singing songs to Noah as well. Mom and Dad read books to the little man every night before bed, at about 8pm ish. By the way, I never thought - while preparing for baby's arrival - that pooping would be such a big (and infrequent) event to look forward too. (His, not ours.) We walked outside to get the mail yesterday and Junior was a hit with the neighbors. He's getting blonder by the day.

In fact, this is the first week that the sun has felt warm outside - the inside of our black metal mailbox was even warm to the touch yesterday. We're daydreaming a bit of playing outside with baby this summer. Making our reservations for camping and cabins this weekend as well to avoid disappointment later. Hopefully a nice trip to Denali National Park during our annual berry picking trip, a stay on the south side of Kachemak Bay to enjoy being away from everything, maybe some other trips. Mid-March we'll spend a weekend up at Chena Hot Springs near Fairbanks to get away from life and soak for awhile. And of course in July we bring baby out to Long Island to swim in the warm ocean and be with family at the Mears family bungalows on Peconic Bay. And also spend time in the fragrant Eastern mountains near the Rehberg home.

Major projects around the house this weekend included setting up recycling bins in the garage and straightening out the home office to make it pretty and usable.

Oop - baby is awake and having tummy time on Mommy's elevated lower legs - super baby! Bye.