Our girls are growing up! Madeleine now vigorously corrects people when they assume she is three years old by telling them, "No, I'm three and a half!" She has definitely become a pre-schooler in terms of social maturity and independence, which is fun for her and a relief to us.

Madeleine often still asks us, "I forget, how old is Rachel again?"  It's hard for all of us to keep track when we count in months and they are flying by, but Rachel is almost 10 months old now. The two sisters are best of friends and it is beautiful to watch their interactions with each other. The more Rachel develops and learns new things, the more Madeleine roots her on and celebrates her. We love watching her develop too, although the early crawling (at 7 1/2 months) and standing up and now "cruising" have made our lives more complicated.

In January we took a trip to South Bend, Indiana to visit Ann's parents and introduce the girls to snow. Madeleine had some memorable quotes. On a day when the high temperature was 12 degrees she asked "Why are there clouds coming out of my mouth?" She spent about 4 minutes on the outdoor ice skating rink before calling it quits ("I'm getting cold and this is very hard") but she wanted to go back the next day. Making a snowman/snowpyramid was a big hit, as was Grandma's hot chocolate when she came inside.

Back in Alameda, we've welcomed three new chickens into our flock. Madeleine chose all the names: Scramble (named after the one who died last fall), Pancake and Waffle, now bring our flock up to six. We are enjoying glimpses of spring, time to work in the garden, and the prospect of Rachel's first birthday soon to come.

We've posted new photos here:

October 2009:

November 2009:

December 2009:

January 2010:

Rachel is already five months old. Her newborn infancy has come and gone, and now our girl is wanting to grow up and PLAY! She does full-body wriggles when excited, and she flaps her arms and legs when she watches her big sister Madeleine run, jump, dance, etc.

She seems eager to eat solid food (she positively panted and drooled over our pesto pasta the other night), but in the meantime she sucks on her big toes a lot. A couple weeks ago she began rolling over and she's never looked back.  She loves to practice making new sounds, and we swear sometimes she vocalizes "just to hear herself talk." We are still yearning for the time when she will begin sleeping through the night and taking more than 30 minute naps.

Now that Madeleine has started pre-school two mornings a week, Rachel gets some special one-on-one time with mom, which we hope makes up for all the time she gets set down so we can get something done around the house. In the last month, Rachel's Grandpa Naffziger got to hold her quite a bit during his two week-long visits. Look at just a few of the newest photos and you'll see why we call her our "little Pauline girl."

We've posted new photos here:

Month 4:

Month 5:

So last month we finally put up my Christmas gift from Ann: a bat house!  Hopefully some area bats will discover it, although we probably will have to wait until next summer.

Bat's are great... a single bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in one hour.  There are a lot of misconceptions about them and it's often difficult for them to find lodging in urban areas.  Being nocturnal, they stay in the bat houses during the day. 

We spent a lot of time trying to find the best location, as it needed to be placed where it gets plenty of sunlight to stay warm.  We ended up placing it along the roof of our old shed.  The bats enter from the bottom.

Some more bat facts:

• Bats are not infected with rabies more than any other animal species, and they very rarely are aggressive when infected (unlike other animals).  Bats that get rabies usually become paralyzed, so you shouldn't touch a bat that is laying on the ground.
• Bats are a protected species.  It is illegal to own, sell, or purchase bats.
• Bats are not aggressive, and will not intentionally people or other animals.  They may bite if you try to touch them, though.
• Bats can live up to 30 years.
• About 70% of all bats are insectivores.
• Bat houses will not encourage bats to roost in attics or attack people.
• In our climate, bats hibernate to warmer areas from late Fall through early Spring.
  

We'll keep you updated on the house's occupancy...

We've been meaning to write a "Rachel is Two Months Old" blog for the last month, but the diaper changes, extra laundry, and hours of rocking to sleep got the best of us and now Rachel is three months old. She is a great smiler, a good nighttime sleeper (she still likes those half hour naps during the day, however), and a fairly calm baby. Occasionally she does feel the need to scream for a bit, we think to steal some of the attention from her big sister.

She's had several big outings for so early in her life: Ardenwood Farms, two Oakland A's games, the Oakland zoo, etc. Madeleine is excited at Rachel's increasing interactive nature and is eager for a time when she can play with her more purposefully.

We've posted new photos here.

Month 2:

Month 3:

Rachel has turned from age zero, as Madeleine says, to one month old. She's done it quickly and quietly as she is a calm and easy-going baby for the most part. Her biggest challenge of the first few weeks was waking up to eat so that she could gain weight. In fact, we actually had to set our alarm clocks a couple of times a night to wake her and feed her since she didn't like to awaken on her own. Now she is more active and alert and we let her wake us when she's ready for some homemade milk. Her continuing challenge is learning digestion. We forgot how hard that is for some newborns and how loud they can be as they try to do it.

Ann has ventured out with her around town a few times, big sister in tow. Mostly, she gets quiet time with mommy at home in the morning when Madeleine has someone special come to play with her (Paul's mom, friends, and neighbors), and "loud" time when Madeleine is around. She seems mostly unphased by the high decibels Madeleine is able to achieve in all manners of her moods, but we have noticed she especially seems to enjoy quiet alert time with both parents after Madeleine goes to bed for the night, just when we're ready for bed.