After lots of time and money trying to get
our new heating system in place, it was finally operational and
working well last month. Sadly, yesterday our upstairs zone
stopped working for some reason. It got quite chilly! Lex fell
asleep in the car on our way home from shopping yesterday, so
when I put him down I still had my coat on and didn’t notice
quite how cold it was. He woke up awhile later crying and I
realized it was only 54 in his room. I brought him downstairs
and we sat in the rocking recliner for a few minutes and he
fell asleep on my lap. So I grabbed a blanket, kicked back the
recliner, and finished his nap with him :) It was sweet. Last
night we bundled him up and put him to bed, but his room was so
chilly when we checked on him that we decided to bring him to
bed with us instead. We had extra blankets and a space heater
in our room. Alan always wants to scoop Lex up and cuddle him,
so he was happy to bring him to bed with us :) The main
drawback is that Lex tends to wake up early and talk to himself
(5:00am today). Usually I turn the monitor off or down and get
up at a more reasonable hour (6:00-6:30am), but with him right
next to me in the bed that was a little more difficult. We
stayed in bed until 6:00am, but he was wide awake reciting
books (Dr. Seuss is a favorite) and I pretended to sleep.

Alan called Sears last night when he
got home and was politely told that there is nothing they can
do after hours. Which sucks!! I guess we are lucky it was only
the upstairs zone, not the downstairs or the whole thing.
Especially because it’s been well below 0 for the past few
nights. Alan is going to call them again this morning and
hopefully they will come out ASAP today. Otherwise naptime
today should be interesting… I’ll keep you posted!

We bought a new couch and coffee table and end
tables!! I’m so excited. We are like grown-ups now with real
furniture instead of college stuff. We also got a new mattress
today and I’m really looking forward to a good night’s sleep!
Our old one was broken and pretty crappy. Alan’s parents came
up with the new mattress and helped pick up the couch with
their truck.

Check out the video down
the side of Lex jumping on the couch. (You can ignore the loud
discussion on global warming, or something, in the
background.)

Another “then and now” for you. It’s interesting
how kids develop interest in characters. Lex has only seen Elmo
on TV once or twice, but he loves his Elmo dolls and even
sleeps with the big one. One morning I was trying to go down
stairs and he came out of his room holding both Elmos. I
carried them all downstairs and at the bottom Lex put the toys
down and said “Big Elmo. Little Elmo. How many Elmos? One. Two.
Two Elmos. That’s a lot of Elmos.” He cracks me up.
Lex is 3 months old in the top picture (Aug 05)
and 20 months in the bottom (Feb 07)

It’s gorgeous today… sunny and high
30’s. Lex and I went outside to get the mail and stayed out for
about 15 minutes while he “shoveled” our driveway. It was nice.
We are all sick in our house though :( Lex seems to be on the
recovering end, Alan in the middle, and I’m just getting sick.
Fun, fun.

I had my 35 week checkup
yesterday. Baby is doing fine and no longer measuring big
(yay!). We saw a new midwife (new to the hospital anyway) and
she was really nice. She let Lex climb up on a stool and hold
the doppler to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. He had huge eyes
and was pretty happy to be helping. Then we ran some errands
and had a play date — our first with a girl. She’s a pretty
tough girl though, and not a bit shy, and they had fun. Lex
even gave her a hug in the kitchen which ended up being a
take-down into the cabinets. She stood up, gave him a funny
look, and walked away. It was great. When I told Alan the story
later he reassured Lex that things will eventually get easier
with the ladies :)

I asked Lex this
morning if he wanted to go to a playgroup today or just stay
home and play. He said “play at home. go to playgroup another
day.” Can’t argue with that. I figured after the long,
family-filled weekend and a busy day yesterday, we’d both be
better off laying low today (and maybe tomorrow…)

That’s all for today. He’s napping (2nd day in
a row that he fell asleep within five minutes!) and I really
need to get a few things done.

  

Sometimes I see
neat “now and then” photos that I feel like sharing. Today, as
I’m learning to use Picasa, these two caught my eye so I
figured I’d test Picasa’s “BlogThis!” feature. Let’s see how it
looks…

Looked mostly ok, but I’m a bit meticulous at
times so I did some additional tweaking :) Also, PS, the first
photo is from the hospital when Lex was one day old and the
second is from a trip to Franklin when he was almost one year
old.