Baby Lily in a Watermelon

It's hard to believe this little girl fits inside a Watermelon but she is still under 11 pounds, in the 5th percentile for weight and height and yes, fits inside a watermelon. She wasn't thrilled about the watermelon. I suspect it was rather chilly inside that fruit.

This is what it looked like behind the scenes of this watermelon shoot (hat tip to Bob Pritchett for the suggestion of baby-in-watermelon photo shoot).

Lily is a pro at photo shoots already. Of course, she has a lot to live up to. Her brother totally rocked his gourd fall shoot two years ago.

Life has been moving very quickly lately. The change in the seasons has made it very apparent that the adage of 'time moves faster when you have kids' is true. Where did summer go? It was a blur of breastfeeding, diaper changes, working, soaping and gardening. I am extremely blessed to have a supportive, loving family. My brother and Dad spent hours (literally, hours) helping to put up stakes and a growing system for our marionberries and raspberries next year. Big thanks to my Mom for pruning them.

  

I've harvested about 30% of our potatoes and gotten at least 100 pounds thus far. I brought some to work this week, shared some with a friend and am basically planning on eating only potatoes for the next year. Sadly, our tomatoes got a type of mold and we had to rip them all out before the mold got into the ground and hurt all the other plants around it. I'll be rotating that crop area and growing something else there this upcoming year. We got maybe 30 small cherry tomatoes before we had to make the difficult decision to rip all the plants out.

Jamisen got into his first bouncy tent last weekend (at the Greek Food Festival in Bellingham) and jumped, and laughed and jumped and laughed. He had the best time. It took some serious patience on the part of my husband and the help of an older child to coax him in but once he went in, he was totally hooked and didn't want to leave. He has so much energy that bouncing and jumping for a long time did absolutely nothing to diminish it.

Lily has started talking, talking, talking. She loves to ooh, and cooh and squeal. Her smile is so big; it's infectious and her Daddy (like everyone) is clearly taken by her sparkling intellect and wit.

We took a trip to the Bellingham Farmer's Market and were pleased when Uncle Erik and Aunt Cheriss joined us. The irony of needing 6 adults to keep track of 1 rambunctious toddler is not lost on me. Seriously, little Jamisen is is so inquisitive and curious. You just never know where he'll dash off to next or who you'll find him trying to converse with. Uncle Erik is especially good with him and I cannot wait for nieces and nephews. It's Erik and Cheriss's turn to bless my parents with some more grandchildren =)

Jamisen is at home in Uncle Erik's arms. Lily may hate me for that hat when she's older but for now, it's over the top baby-cute. Hands down (yes, pun intended), the best baby gift we got (which was a very close second behind the Baby Beaba) was the Baby Bjorn. I love being able to strap Lily onto my chest and walk around, hike, do chores etc... hands free. My back doesn't love it as much but that's a small price to pay for mobility with a baby.

Lest you think that everything is all hunky dory and easy in our household, this is how I generally look when not out in public. Tired and slightly overwhelmed with the scope of the blessings we have (and by "blessings", I mean "children"). Two kids is way more challenging than one and the girlfriend (I'm looking at you Patrice Valentine) that told me that two wasn't that much harder than one totally lied. Last night, I was putting Jamisen to bed at 8 p.m. when I realized he hadn't had any dinner. That might explain why he was foraging in the cabinets and trying to get his own food while I was trying to calm Lily down and get her to sleep. If I didn't have a supportive husband, amazing extended family and paid help with childcare during the day, I am pretty sure I'd be in the Funny Farm right about now and my children would miss a lot more meals.

Even with all the chaos, we love our family of four. Time goes by so quickly with two children. Can you believe Lily is on her way to being 4 months old?! She's our precious little girl and though the adults in the house are tired, we are consistently happy, entertained, challenged and never stop counting our many blessings.