It is the 100th anniversary of the Cherry Blossoms.  Today was the last day of the peak bloom, so we packed a breakfast picnic and headed downtown with the girls.  The Cherry Blossoms were so incredibly beautiful - it was the perfect morning.

Leah at Two Months

We celebrated Leah's two month birthday on Tuesday.   At her check-up, we discovered she now weighs 10 pounds and has grown a few inches since birth.  Lucy has been helping Leah with her tummy time.  The weather has been fantastic, so we've been outside quite a bit.  Leah goes to pick up Lucy from school most days and we walk home.  We are hoping the weather continues to stay nice in March and April, while Jennifer finishes off her maternity leave.

A Few Firsts

Lucy had her first haircut at the end of January.  We went to a place called "Cartoon Cuts."  This place has mastered the art of distraction with TVs playing Dora or Scooby Doo at every chair.  Lucy really enjoyed the experience...especially the lollipop that came at the end (another first). 

Just after her one month birthday, Leah rewarded us with her first smile.  We love seeing her flash her big grin.  She also had her first real bath, which she loved. 

Leah is a month old...how time flies!

New Addition to the Team

On December 28th, Team Meder welcomed into the world Leah Paige Meder. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. Mom and baby Leah are healthy and feeling great. Lucy is excited to be a big sister and has been extraordinarily understanding that she now has to share her parent’s time. Not surprisingly, sleep is a very rare commodity for mom and dad. Slowly but surely though, life is settling down for us.

Fall Fun

Despite the earthquake and hurricane we experienced this fall, we worked on settling into our townhouse and living through a number of firsts. Autumn was a blissfully hectic couple of months. After a couple of weeks of Camp Daddy, Lucy started at pre-school mid-September. It was a big adjustment at first, but now she’s excited to hang out with all of her new friends. Later that month, we trekked up north about 5 hours to visit Jen’s family in Warwick, New York. It was great to see everyone (Tom, Kathy, Emily, Alyssa, Grandma Flo, Kathleen, Harvey and Mike) and we ended up taking home a giant bag of apples that we picked from the orchard where Alyssa works part time.

October took Team Meder down to Florida for a quick trip to visit Eddie’s mom and sister, plus introduce Lucy to the great wonders of Disney World. Disney was a blast, especially spinning around in the tea cups. Fortunately the weather held up and the lines weren’t too long, but the rest of the weekend felt like Florida got hit by a tropical storm. For Halloween, Lucy rotated between two costumes – a kitty cat and a panda bear. Both were extremely adorable!

The holidays were pretty quiet for Team Meder. With Jen over eight months pregnant we couldn’t travel that far from home. We stayed in for Thanksgiving and enjoyed a not so traditional hearty lasagna (Jen and Eddie aren’t big fans of Turkey). In December, Lucy got to meet Santa a couple of times. The first time at the mall, Lucy screamed in terror, but she was much more at peace with Santa when he stopped by her school. We headed up to Baltimore for a festive night at Jess and Aaron’s Hanukkah party and Emily Caren also dropped by for a mid-December visit. In expectation of baby #2’s arrival, Eddie’s mom came up to lend us a hand for a couple of weeks. This was unbelievably helpful and Lucy had tons of fun hanging out with her “Abuelita.” Lucy was a good girl in 2011 and Santa was very generous with his toys, which included a kid’s camera, Chicago Bears sweatshirt and a bouncy house (unfortunately, Santa didn’t blow it up giving Eddie a nice upper body workout using his bicycle pump).

Exciting News to Share

We are thrilled to share that we are expecting a new member of Team Meder. Arrival expected on or around New Year's Eve. If you have any advice to share for life with two kids, we'd love to hear from you!