Anna's New Car

Today, we spent hours at CarMax -- where nearly everything that could go wrong, did go wrong -- replacing the dying 2012 Hyundai Accent, which Anna has been driving for a few years now (for the last few months with the check engine light on), with this new (to us, at least) 2015 Toyota Prius:

Pictures from Molly's Visit

 Molly visited for a few days this week. She stayed with my parents; one day, some of us went for a picnic at Vines Park; another day, she and Anna met their cousin, Katie, at Stone Mountain Park. Here are a few pictures she took while she was here:

Sleeping Beauty

Today, Anna and Elyse went to see the Sugarloaf Youth Ballet perform "Sleeping Beauty" at the Gas South Theater, at which Anna took this picture of Elyse posing in front of the backdrop they had set up:

Christmas in July

This morning Anna and Elyse and I went to the Grayson "Christmas in July" market (J. went to Granny and Pa's house to make cards.) Here are three of the pictures I took there:

Spring Break in Sarasota

For the past few days, Anna and the kids have been on a road trip to Sarasota, Florida, to spend a few days at an Airbnb house with Molly and Dave and their kids. (It was only Spring Break week for one of the colleges where I teach, not both, so I stayed home so I could teach.) Here are some of the pictures they texted to me from their adventures:

This is at the Florda Welcome Center, sometime Sunday afternoon when they finally broke free of Georgia.

In the pool of the hotel where they stayed Sunday night in Gainesville, FL.

So as not to arrive in Sarasota too early Monday, and because it seemed like it would be fun, they went here for a few hours.

The pool at the rented house in Sarasota, lit up at night

The beach at Sarasota

Another picture of the pool at the rented house in Sarasota, during the day.

Anna at the bubble-tea place

The kids at the bubble-tea place

Kayaking in the Mangrove Forest

On the way home today, they stopped at Georgia's Indian Springs State Park, where this and the following pictures were taken.

Vines Gardens Walk

This afternoon Anna and Elyse and I went to Vines Gardens. These are the pictures I texted to Jessica while we were there:

Heaven

Anna's in heaven--a book in her hand and two cats in her lap:

Happy Birthday, Annie!

Today is Anna's birthday! We went to Granny and Pa's house for lunch (Chinese food from Oriental Garden), mostly to celebrate the birthday but partially also to escape our own house, which was having a new roof rather noisily put on it).

Jessica has spent several hours over the previous few days working on a bag for Mommy, using Granny's super-duper sewing machine. I wish I had some pictures of Jessica working on it, but I do have some pictures of Anna opening it:

Mommy Goes to Minnesota

Anna is going to Minnesota to visit her family for Thanksgiving, and this morning, while the girls stayed at Granny and Pa's house, I took her to the airport:

I texted this picture of Mom saying goodbye to Jessica:

There's a lot of construction going on at the airport right now:

While I was gone, Jessica sent me these pictures of what they were doing at Granny and Pa's house:

Fur Kids

Today, the day before the girls go back to school, Anna and Jessica went to Fur Kids to visit with the kitties:

(Elyse didn't want to go, so she stayed home with me and cleaned up her room.)

Halloween Costumes

Tonight we went to Granny and Pa's house for supper (sesame chicken -- as Elyse calls it, "Chinese chicken" -- and sweet and sour chicken from Oriental Garden), and then we tried to go to downtown Lawrenceville to do trick-or-treating on the square, but, oh!, the traffic, and, oh!, the hundreds of people! (Maybe even thousands. No kidding, it was BUSY!) So instead of stopping in Lawrencville--I'm honestly not sure we could have found a parking space anyway--we turned round and stopped at Publix and got Halloween cupcakes and Halloween cookies and came home and watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Elyse was terribly disappointed we didn't get to go trick-or-treating, but she would have been miserable standing in the lines that snaked all the way down the sidewalk just to get a tiny bit of candy.

Even though we didn't get to trick-or-treat, the girls did get dressed up ("I got dressed up all for nothing!" Elyse said in the car as we drove home, butI told her she got dressed up so Granny could see her in her costume, since Granny and Pa will be in Myrtle Beach on the real Halloween. Elyse didn't find this convincing.). Here's what they looked like at Granny and Pa's house:

Elyse has had her costume for weeks, but Jessica just got hers this afternoon at Walmart. Anna was dressed up for her pirate-themed book fair at school.

Anna's New Car

After nearly fifteen years with her 1998 Nissan Altima--a darn good car, she was--yesterday Anna and I went to CarMax in Roswell, and she bought a new (albeit used) car: A 2012 Nissan Leaf:

So far, we love it, though it has been less than twenty-four hours since we drove it off the lot. It does have a range of only about eighty miles, though, so it won't be our family vacation car. When it comes time for me to get a new car in a couple of years, a Leaf won't even be an option for me.

(In case you're wondering, you don't actually bring the giant yellow bow home with you. It's just for a photo opportunity, then they take it off the car and put it back in a locker somewhere. I was rather relieved by that fact.)

Mommy's New Sewing Machine

Anna bought herself a new sewing machine today (the day before Thanksgiving!), and her first project was making a dress for Elyse's Merida doll:

(I took these pictures with what I bought for myself yesterday, a new camera--a Nikon Coolpix P7800)

Two Weeks Old

Today Jessica turned two weeks old.

She came home to live with us a little over a week ago, on Tuesday, January 30, after spending the first six days of her life in the NICU. We were, as you can imagine, overjoyed to finally bring her home.

She is doing very well; in fact, she was up to four pounds at her doctor's visit last Friday. I suspect she'll be up to five pounds before the month is over. Anna and I are doing okay too. We're very tired but quite happy.

Jessica is an alert and interested baby; she studies the faces of new people and the walls of new rooms intently, and the mobile over her crib keeps her happy for...well, we don't know exactly how long, since it shuts off automatically after fifteen minutes, but at least for fifteen minutes. We've read Dr. Seuss's ABC and Are You My Mother? to her several times, and, while I'm not sure how well she's following the plots or if she's getting much out of the pictures, she's intrigued by the sounds of our voices as we read, interested in our hands as we turn pages, and delighted that we're focused solely on her. We're delighted right back.

She's also a real wiggle worm. If we don't put her diapers on tight enough, she can squirm almost all the way out of them. I've taken to calling her the Houdini of Huggies (though she's actually wearing Pampers).

And speaking of Pampers, we may be going to the bank soon to take out a second mortgage on our house to keep her in those diapers. As Veta Simmons says in Harvey, "babies do need changing, you know." She can go through a pack of 20 Pampers Swaddlers in less than 48 hours.

We don't know what caused Jessica to be so small; the doctors call it Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR), and it can result from a number of things, including various viruses and problems with the placenta. None of those things seemed to be a factor in Jessica's case, however; she's just a very small baby. It's likely there will be no long-term problems as a result of her being an IUGR baby, and she will probably catch up to typical-size babies by the time she's two.

Thanks to everyone who has sent us packages and cards and notes; we are buoyed by the knowledge that we have such supportive family and friends. Jessica sends her thanks too.

Here are a handful more pictures from the last couple of weeks:

Only a few hours old, in the NICU:

Daddy feeding Jessica in the NICU when she was two days old:

The proud grandmother holding Jessica:

Home at last, in the arms of Mommy:

Finally sleeping in her own crib:

Mommy feeding Jessica on our own sofa: