The Zereps

Long time, no post… But to make up for it here are a bunch of pictures of Alice’s First Birthday party. Enjoy!

Time sure has flown since last month! Here’s a quick summary of events:

Two days after Alice was born, and I was still at the “Baby Castle” (that’s what Arthur calls the hospital) my parents arrived from California for a 2 week visit. They ran errands, cleaned the house, and various other domestic activities so that I could recover and take care of Alice. They also entertained Arthur, no small fete, let me tell you! 🙂

Eric returned to work the Wednesday after Alice arrived, seeing as it was a new job, and new jobs are quite hard to come by lately. So far he’s enjoying the work and the people, not to mention the shorter commute!

After a two week visit the grandparents had to return home. We really appreciated their help, though! 🙂 During the week that followed we got a little settled into our new routine of Eric working, and me keeping Arthur out of trouble and feeding Alice.

At the end of our settling week, Eric’s mom came out for a visit to play with Arthur and see new little Alice. Eric will post some pictures of the fun stuff they did during that time. I won’t since I stayed at home, being as I am so tired all the time and Alice is still so little.

And that brings us up to the present! Those weeks were also peppered with doctor’s visits, short trips out, and the stomach flu. Let me tell you……the stomach flu (read “the works”) is so. not. fun. one week after giving birth, having major abdominal surgery, and nursing a newborn. Thankfully Alice did not get sick. Every one else did. Anyhoo…..

And here are a few pictures of Alice around a month old!

She was born on Thursday, July 15, 2010 @ 11:48pm. She weighed 5 pounds and 11 ounces and was about 18 inches long.

Yes, this is a real post about my pregnancy! Hopefully I’m not surprising anyone with the news, since I’ve mentioned it casually in a few other posts. 🙂

The official arrival of said baby won’t occur until early August, but I thought a post, with a link or two, was in order. And early August is fast approaching. I am still waiting for a burst of energy to get some things around the house done, but that might not happen…I find myself tired and either zoning out or napping (or doing laundry) during Arthur’s short afternoon naps. Plus, I am getting a wee bit too, how shall I say, bulky, for all the heavy cleaning and painting I had envisioned myself doing. 🙂

On to business. 😉 As this is our second baby, we are fortunate enough to have a few big ticket items already in stock here at the Perez Garage and Basement Storage Facility, however, if you are curious as to what we might want or need I have made a small registry over at Amazon.com. You can follow this link and then enter our names to view it. A few people have also expressed extreme excitement excitement over the fact that we are going to have a baby girl this time around (95% likely, that is), so let me wax eloquently on what we (I) like and dislike as far as colors, etc.

Pink. I like it. I think it’s cute. I like vintage prints and items, as well as modern prints and items. The only colors I don’t like on newborn baby girls are orange and yellow, and possibly bright green. Muted yellow, though, is nice.

Sizes. This baby, if it is anything like Arthur as far as weight, and it probably will be, won’t be needing 3M items until it is cool here (late October/November). So, unfortunately, cute, puffy summer outfits won’t be on the agenda this year unless they’re sized to fit newborns.

Ok…just to clarify, this is is not a solicitation for gifts, it’s is simply information should you be interested. 🙂

Today we took a stroll around Lily Lake near Estes Park. Here are some pics.

I’ve taught him well.

And we STILL got a hard frost last night! 🙁 Eric and Arthur are out tending to our ‘crops’ right now. 🙂 We got a little over eager and planted strawberries in a strawberry pot the other day and it had to be covered with a blanket, as did our two apple trees, which are in blossom.

And now for some more pictures!

Last weekend was the first Farmer’s Market of the season and to celebrate I made Arthur his own little market bag! He loved it and picked out some radishes to buy and stuff in there. I was also ambitious and knitted him the sweater, which I am very proud of gosh darn it!

The day after the Market, we went for a walk around a local lake we had never before visited. It was really pretty and I suspect we’ll be frequenting it more regularly. Eric also managed to find a geocache on the walk. (It was a lame micro-cache.)

Our garden!

Oh boy are we ever glad that Spring has officially arrived here in Colorado. We had 6 months of getting snowed. That’s enough. 🙂

April brought with it a visit from “Nanna Niece” and “Grandpa Al” as well as Mickey Dog, and our first big “trip” anywhere without our little Muffin Man in tow.

The visit from the Grandparents was really nice. We took them to the park, on walks, and lots of time was spent out in the backyard. Arthur now thinks he’s king of the backyard and can easily spend hours playing, watering his plants, getting into trouble, being towed in his wagon, spraying water, etc, etc. After a few adjustment days with his grandparents, Eric and I headed out for a brief trip to California to see family, friends, and more of each other.

We had a really enjoyable time and our hotel was “fancy” (for us, hehe) thanks to hotwire.com. We were always busy, but unfortunately forgot to take pictures. Eric got some of the day he spent with his family hiking and having a picnic, but I think he wants to post about that himself. I spent that morning with my cousin, Tiffany, and then wasn’t feeling well enough that afternoon to join him for the picnic. Anyhoo…we had a great time, and a big thank you to all those who where able to spend some time with us! 🙂

Seeing as this was the first time away from Arthur (I’m not counting a trip to NE I took in February because he was with Eric while I was gone) we were glad to get back home again. And I was glad to get out of the airplane. You will not be seeing me fly EVER again without Dramamine, tyvm. And a glass of wine. But being pregnant meant that I took nothing for the flight, thus I was an extraordinarily unhappy camper who couldn’t open her mouth for fear of projectile vomit.

And our visitors had to leave shortly after we returned home. We were all sad to see them leave, but hopefully we will see them in a few months. 🙂

Here are some photos!