Jacob, Week Three

Well, it looks like I'm managing a post a week (and they are all so creatively titled, too!). Meh, anyway, here's some of what you really come here for:

On Sunday, I took Natalie out for bagels. A little mommy-daughter date!

A success, I'd say!

We also celebrated Grandma Pat's belated birthday last week. I made a new chocolate cake recipe, the Wellesley Fudge Cake. The cake was awesome - deeply chocolatey and very moist. The icing, while delicious, wasn't my favorite; I think I would have preferred something more in the family of dark chocolate and less in the family of fudge. My official cake-sampler reported no irregularities, however.

I keep plowing away (or at least dribbling away) on Jacob's baby blanket. Needless to say, the arrival of the baby beat the completion of the blanket. But I can multi-task!

On the Jacob front, he remains as snuggly and cuddly as ever (see above. And below).

Jacob also took his first walk outside. He seems like being outside, although he remains deeply skeptical about any breath of wind whatsoever.

On Saturday, Mike and Natalie headed to school to see the women's basketball team take on UT. According to Mike, there were far more UT fans in attendance. However, Mike and Natalie were clearly rooting for the home team!

 In closing, here's one of my favorite recent Jacob pictures:

Jacob, Week Two

Here's a little round-up of some week two pictures.

Snuggling with Daddy:

Jacob is bigger than Natalie was at this age, but he's still so adorably small. And he does the funniest stretches!

And he sleeps. A lot. Especially during the day!

 Here's Natalie modeling her big sister shirt:

And here she is with Grandma Pat, both of them studying the new addition:

And Jacob's studying you. . . .

Settling In

Here are a few more Jacob shots. He's such a lovely little lump of baby.

The many faces of Jacob:

 Big sister pics:

As you can see, Natalie has no ambivalence whatsoever about the role of big sister. Clearly.

Do they look alike?

Jacob has a real appetite for life!

Sometimes.

In the afternoon, we all snuggle together.

In closing, Jacob is ready to take on the world!

New Jacob albums

Here's the latest round of Jacob pictures. I've actually pulled everything from birth, the hospital stay, and our first few days at home and organized them into separate (although not necessarily expertly edited) albums.

Here's my favorite shot from Jacob's birth, followed by the whole album.

Here's my favorite shot from our hospital stay, followed by the whole album.

And here's my favorite shot from our first few days at home, followed by the whole album.

It's been going fairly well at home. Natalie is definitely interested in Jacob and always wants to touch him and bring him stuffed animals. We're still working on gentle touches and appropriate stuffed animal placement, but, hey, we'll get there. 

Jacob "sleeps" like a newborn at night (he's much better during the day, alas). Natalie spent our first night home "sleeping" like she has much of the past four months. Last night was an improvement, on both fronts, over our first night at home, so maybe things will continue to improve?

We've also been getting lots of lovely calls, emails, and texts with welcome baby wishes. Thank you! It's my goal to reply, but I'll admit I've been slow, for some reason . . . .

Jacob Samuel

Jacob Samuel Strausz was born last night (1/12/13) at 9:22pm. He was 7lbs, 6oz; 19 inches long. We are smitten!

Everything is going well: Jacob has received good reports from the pediatrician and from his hearing test, he's eating like a pro, and Natalie and Aunt Jenny were up this morning for visit. Natalie was interested in him and proclaimed that his bassinet was his "fish tank". So make of that what you will!

 We haven't pulled the immediate post-birth photos off the big camera, but here's a small album of photos taken today with my phone:

Winter Break Wrap-Up

Well, the post title is a bit misleading, since Natalie and I went back to school / work on Wednesday and Mike still has another week to go. Of course, we're all waiting on baby #2 (the porpoise-dolphin) who can come at any time and upend the work / school schedule.

Our winter break was lovely and low-key. We really didn't do much, go anywhere, or get together with many folks. It was just us, laying low. Awesome.

First, here's the promised picture of the menorah that Natalie made in school. I love the creative idea behind the branch and the washers. That said, the menorah exhibited a certain tendency to pitch forward, so we didn't actually light the candles on it every night.

In the spirit of another festival of lights, we went to the Chinese Lantern Festival over in Dallas. Our good friends had some extra tickets, and they were kind enough to share them with us. What fun! Best, since it was Texas in December, we strolled around the festival wearing only light sweatshirts.

The pictures, of course, don't do it justice. One thing that was pretty cool is that the dragon (pictured above) was totally made out of porcelain dishes, cups, spoons, etc. It was really neat to see how the artists had put ordinary kitchen things together to create a very realistic dragon.

Part of our cozy holiday was just staying in and relaxing together. In the holiday spirit, we had bean soup ("THE SOUP"), baked pumpkin doughnuts, tea, and toshikoshi cinnamon rolls.

Contributing to our cozy times, we had snow! But, luckily, we were (mostly) ready for whatever Mother Nature dished out!

 The extremely talented and generous Miso sent Natalie a knitted kitty cat.

In a challenging winter event for Mike, the TCU football team played the MSU football team in a bowl game. That called for divided loyalty cookies!

Regarding the new baby, we're all just sitting tight, waiting. Watch this space!