Darr Family Blog

Weekly Happenings: The main thing that happened this past week was that Joseph received an award at school. The students at his school focus on eight different keys of excellence (or something like that). One of those keys is commitment, which is what Joseph’s teacher picked him for. Tuesday night was the assembly for the awards. It was new to us that the assembly happened at night, instead of during the day, but it was nice that our entire family could attend. Joseph was pretty excited to get his certificate and medal. Other than that, it was a pretty average week with a visit to the library to trade books and just hanging around the house.

The Weekly Weather: Mostly warm, but the past few days have been pretty chilly. It’s crazy how much it’s been flip-flopping. People on the Internet joke that Texas is trying to experience all of the seasons in one week, haha.

What Paul’s Been Up To: Mainly his main things: work and school. He did make a shirt for Joseph for the 100th day of school. Joseph was supposed to wear a shirt with 100 of something on it (a lot of the kids did eyeballs, stickers, etc.). Paul found a picture of 100 different Pokémon, printed it onto iron-on paper, and put it on a white shirt. Joseph was pretty stoked. It turned out well enough that Joseph will be able to wear it more than once, which is always a plus in my book. 🙂

What Sarah’s Been Up To: I have been mainly taking care of the tiny humans…but I did go to a Relief Society activity on Wednesday. Each person brought a brown bag with three things in it that best described them and then we had to try to guess which items belonged to which people. It was a lot of fun. I also had my six week post-partum check up and they did another glucose test to ensure I no longer have diabetes (sometimes it doesn’t go away after pregnancy). I’ll find out in a couple of weeks what the results are, I believe. I left both kids at home with Paul during the testing since it was a two hour one. It was weird to be just by myself for that long. I’m glad he got some Daddy-Abigail time, though. I think I may have been monopolizing her a bit. When Joseph was born, Paul left for the Middle East so soon afterwards, I was solo with Joseph from almost the beginning of that first ten months. I think I’m sort of still in that mindset with Abigail, even though he’s home this time around. I need to be better about giving him time with her.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been enjoying life at school. He wears his medal from his award quite a bit around the house (though he will pretend that it’s a myriad of different things), which I think is pretty cute. He loved that this past week contained the 100th day of school because they got to do extra fun things at school. They also did some fun things with groundhogs since this past week also contained Groundhog’s Day. I really love the program that he’s in. He gets exposure to different subjects and learning, but they do a lot of fun things as well. It’s sort of how kindergarten used to be, which I think is really good for him to get to experience.

What Abigail’s Up To: She’s even more smiley than last week. I was holding her and I made a funny noise to see if I could get her attention. She looked very seriously at me and then cracked a huge grin. It makes my day when I get to see one of those, since they are so brief. She has also hit the six-week mark. It’s hard to believe that in a couple of weeks I’ll be taking her in for her two month check-up. Craziness!

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: Well, we made it another week! This past week was pretty average. Work, school, and home. Paul did take Friday off because on Saturday he was planning on attending PAX (a gaming convention here in town). Friday he did all of his Saturday stuff, including taking Joseph to get a haircut. Other than that, it was just a day-in-day-out type of week.

The Weekly Weather: Most of the week it was warm enough to not even need sweatshirts. The end of the week and the weekend was colder, but it’s supposed to get back up into the 70s before too long.

What Paul’s Been Up To: Mostly work, school, and Scouts. The other night, he had to call the sheriff because our neighbors decided to start fighting at one in the morning. Because it was a big group and they were yelling and actually physically fighting, Paul decided to call 911 instead of the non-emergency line. The sheriff deputies arrived in less than 10 minutes. There was one more burst of fighting after the deputies left, but not as bad as the first. We haven’t heard a peep out of them since then. Hopefully they learned to keep themselves calmer and not to disturb neighbors during the wee sma’s of the morning.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Basically keeping my two tiny humans alive and happy. I did manage to take both of them to the grocery store yesterday, all by myself, and nobody was too much worse the wear. I feel a small sense of accomplishment. 😉

What Joseph’s Been Up To: Mainly school and homelife. We did go and get him a bigger bike when we realized that his balance bike was way too small for him. Even though we would normally wait for his birthday or Christmas, both just passed, and we didn’t want him to have to wait that long (it is only January, after all).

What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been focusing a bit better on faces and has been smiling more. It’s been a fun bit of progress with her.

This Week in Pictures:

Weekly Happenings: This past week was one of experimentation, of sorts. Abigail had been showing signs of having the same milk protein sensitivity that Joseph had as a baby. We tried giving her different types of formula to see what the results would be, eventually settling on what we figured we would: soy formula. She has been a different baby! She’s more at ease, sleeps more (believe it or not, she wasn’t sleeping as much as she ought to have been), and generally more relaxed. I’m so glad that Paul is here with me to help me assess this type of stuff and to be a sounding board! The rest of the week was pretty basic: school for Joseph, work and school for Paul, and home stuff for me.

The Weekly Weather: It’s been really nice. It’s been sunny and in the low- to mid-70s for most of the time. It’s crazy to think that it’s January!

What Paul’s Been Up To: Mostly juggling work, homework, helping out around the house (and jumping in to make dinner as soon as he got home from work a few times), and making sure Joseph gets some much-needed attention while I’m still really busy with Abigail. He also was able to get our taxes done already. I’m so blessed!

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Mainly adjusting to a new aspect of our schedule with the bottle feeding, but it’s all coming back to me. In addition, I’m learning from some things that I might not have done as well with Joseph and adjusting how I do things with Abigail.

What Joseph’s Up To: School, homework, and still getting to have some fun downtime with toys (as well as getting “electronics time” which means he gets to play with his 2DS or watch his tablet). He loves to help me with things for Abigail and loves to talk to her, tell her jokes, and do silly dances for her. He gets pretty excited when she gives him a smile. Another thing he’s started wanting to do is read in bed at bedtime. We got him a lamp that lights up his room just enough to read by, but still keeps the room dark enough that he eventually falls asleep.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: As I mentioned before, she’s been a happier baby since the big feeding switch. Last night, she even slept for 3.5-hour stretches (which makes Momma happier, too). She’s been holding her head up more, making little baby noises, and smiling more. It’s hard to believe that she’s one month old today. She’s been such a blessing in all of our lives!

This Week in Pictures: