We have weathered the storm of having a newborn. Our sweet little guy is two months old and in my book, that's no longer newborn. I'll be the first to admit that our "newborn storm" was a bit stormier than most. We had a scary birth, I had a slower than anticipated recovery, our little guy spent several nights in the hospital with RSV, and subsequently we had to quarantine ourselves against cold/flu season until baby boy was 2 months old and had built up a little more resilience. Oh yeah, and our dog has cancer. Seriously, a tough season for our family.

That said, we are cruising along. I suspect that our resilience is based on the that fact that anything seems doable when you are faced with extra scary possibilities early on. Plus we are head over heals in love with our sweet boy. Through all of the tough stuff, he puts a smile on our faces with his big bright eyes and goofy grin. He's seriously the nicest baby ever. That's really the only way I can describe his little spirit. He's nice. It's a totally lame descriptor (as opposed to a mean baby?) but it's completely true. He loves to be held and cuddled but doesn't fight it when I lay him down. He adores his sister and doesn't protest in the least when she gives him her extra special hugs and kisses (think Elmyra from Looney Tunes). He wakes up a lot still (every two hours for the first 8 weeks-now we get a 4 hour stretch and then a 3) but when he wakes up, he almost never cries and just makes little noises, which I interpret as a baby's version of saying "Excuse me, I hate to wake you but I could really use some milk." When I get up and peek into his crib, all I see is two giant dark eyes staring up at me and I feel a little ache of love that I never knew existed before babies. When his eyes land on mine, 3 out of 4 times, he cracks a sweet little smile and I wonder how there was ever a time that we didn't have him. Like I said, nice.

So, two months. We are out of full-blown quarantine and we are finally able let the rest of the world meet our special boy. One by one, he's been meeting friends and family and I've discovered that not only is he a total charmer, he's also a bit of a flirt...and it doesn't hurt that he might be one of the most handsome boys in the history of boys.

One of the highlights of ending our quarantine was our Sunday at Grandma Susie and Papa's house. The girls were ridiculously excited to see each other and were more than happy to pose for some pictures. Jack was a little less enthusiastic about pictures but just as adorable.

I love that the girls are holding hands in this one.

Yes, they are posing on an Oly Beer crate...that's how we roll.

Like I said, they missed each other.

One of my new favorite pictures...

Then the girls did some egg gathering. Have to earn your keep at Grandma Susie's farm!