Long time no see!

Well, it's our fault "long time no see," but as you can probably imagine, life has been a little crazy around the Lawrance household lately. In my little bit of time each afternoon when both kids are napping, attempting to take a nap on the couch usually wins out over laundry, blog posts, and many other "to-do's"! (Note that I said "attempting." Alli usually has other plans for me.) As I type, they are both napping. However, today the only place I can get Alli to nap is in the front carrier. In addition to all of the craziness that comes with two kids, Scott is devoting every extra minute he has to finishing his doctorate. He is planning on graduating this spring and neither of us can wait until he is done.

The last several nights have been pretty rough. We have taken several steps backward in terms of how long Alli will sleep. If it wasn't for Scott being such a wonderful husband and taking on a signifcant portion of the nighttime load, I would probably only get 2-3 hours of sleep. I keep reminding myself it could be worse. While she doesn't like to sleep for very long on her own, at least she is not screaming the entire night. However, we are both REALLY REALLY hoping that we start taking steps forward again VERY soon!

Alli is growing like a weed! We have not been to the doctor lately, but I guess that she weighs at least 9 pounds now. She is eating like crazy and spending more and more time awake. She has even smiled at me a couple of times! Ethan continues to be very interested in Alli. He likes to be a protective big brother. Although like a typical 2 year old, he has definetly been testing me lately, especially when my hands are full taking care of Alli.

I just barely missed getting the real smile on camera!

Kristy and Josh came over for a playdate on Monday. Ethan really enjoyed extending his roll as big brother to big cousin. He was very interested in "Dosh" and stuck pretty close to him and Aunt Kristy while they were here. They left while Ethan was napping, and when he got up he was very upset to find out that they are gone. In the two days since, he has frequently told me about "Dosh"!

Alli looks like she is thinking, "What's your problem, buddy?"