sleeping peacefully in her straightjacket, as James calls it.  This contraption really helps her stay asleep longer--she doesn't startle herself awake when her arms are put to sleep too.

Luna is growing and changing so fast, its hard to keep up the blog with all her news.  She's growing like a champ--we'll have an official weigh in at the doctor's in 2 weeks, but she's growing out of clothes left and right. Not only is she smiling up a storm, but laughing too. And who can make her laugh the hardest and longest?  Why, her big sister of course.  Yesterday she even wrangled onto her back from her stomach! What a sweet and delightful girl!

photos from our trip to utah.  tons of fun skiing with Rob&Rina and Yusuke&Sayaka. Also had lots of fun catching up with our salt lake friends that we don't see nearly enough and miss a lot.
also, put a couple videos up on youtube, from sept last year--good showcase of eleri dancing(and susan and james)

salt lake pub. libraryhiking in mill creek                    R&R get their snuggle oneleri's snow jabba on the deckcondo lifezonked kidscoloring with drake

sayaka and luna

wow-its been a long time between posts.  so much has happened: trips to California and Utah, Luna's 2 month checkup, weekend ski trip to Red River, and general fun and excitement.  Luna's new stats as of 3/1: 11#, 21in, head 90th percentile. growing like an adorable little weed and smiling up a storm.
Sam scripted this from Eleri yesterday-- what she said when he asked her what park they should go to:
there's a new park across the river.  it's got green and red slides.  i've never seen a park painted like that in my whole life.  somebody build it like that.  it has a rainbow slide.  the building man help us build it.  it was really hard.  and dangerous because there's tools and screwdrivers all over.  i think it park is way far away.  i can't just believe it.  we climbed up the slide and see how big the slide was and it was really big.  cause we have to send it all the way to Madagascar.  but Leo's not coming back to Madagascar...she's just going to live there, but that's not where she lives.

the new park has a really big slide...for eleven big kids...and three year olds.  but one time i saw a one old go on it and all the blood come out.  he had a big accident and the doctor had to fix him.

and next to the park is a place with music.  really crazy music from a movie show.  and it plays next to the park.  it's just for kids.  and big people.  it's all mixed up.





That girl sure is crazy sometimes.
Here's a bunch of pictures from assorted things.

road trippinbreakfast at the Hansen'sbreakfast in La Jollaselling ice cream in La JollaSan Diego

Luna after a major diaper blowout

skiing in red river

 eleri took this picture of Susan at the zoo



Utah pictures in the next post.....

Grandpa and Nana come to visit!

All the way from South Carolina to visit Eleri and meet little Luna -- we had a fun weekend.  Pretty low key, but we did go to the dinosaur museum, and on a walk, and talked about going to the beach in August.  Here's some good pics from the visit:

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

The illustrator draws the pictures
The illustrator draws the pictures
Hi-ho the dairy-o
The illustrator draws the pictures.

The author writes the words
The author writes the words
Hi-ho the dairy-o
The author writes the words

Eleri made this song up last night...as far as i can tell.

Eleri told me today that we should do something to make our house look nicer.  Feeling intrigued (and professionally threatened!) I asked her what we should do to make the house nicer, to which she said we should make it look prettier.  Well, I answered, we have our nice Dmitri mural - isn't that pretty?"  She said, "yeah, but we should make it even prettier", to which I asked "what would you have us do?"  to which she offered that we could paint rainbows on the house.  "Where should we paint the rainbows", i asked.  "Well, rainbows are in the sky, so we could put ours on the roof....and maybe some little ones on the walls too."

4 weeks old!
Happy 4 week birthday Luna on Jan20! She continues to be a sweet and calm baby, really only crying when she's hungry.  Well, and when Eleri bonks heads with her accidentally, or when Cosmo jumps on her lap when she's sleeping -- but those are probably understandable...  Have two sisters ever looked so much alike?  So far we wonder if we'll be able to tell apart their baby pictures. On the same day, Eleri had her third gymnastics class, which she is really enjoying.  Maybe I'll get some pictures from that soon too.
Here are some photos of the day:

 

 

 

Yeaa!!!!  We have a new baby girl.  Luna Johanna Edwards was born on Wednesday the 23rd of December at 11:30pm.  She was 7lbs. 6oz. and 19.5 inches long.

As some of you may know, the 23rd of December is my birthday - so on my birthday - we all decided to go out to the Salinas Mission ruins - about an hour and a half drive from Albuquerque in order to enjoy the winter weather in a low-key way appropriate to a 39 week pregnant Megan.  My parents flew in from Wisconsin the night before so they joined us there along with our friends Ivana and Domogoj and my sister Susan and her husband Hilaire.  So we were all out there sight-seeing about 80 miles from Albuquerque when the water broke.  Megan was totally calm and excused herself to the restroom to clean up a little for the drive home.  While she was in there we explained what was happening to Eleri and when Megan came out Eleri said "where's my little sister?"  We had to explain that she wasn't actually born there in the park bathroom - which was a relief to me, but a disappointment to Eleri.  Megan was so calm that I decided it was best to drive in a safe manner, but everyone thought it seemed wrong to drive rationally at such a time.  Nonetheless we drove home, made some dinner, and packed some things for the hospital.  Megan found a website called "Contraction Master" that helped gauge her progress.  Around 9 things started heating up so we headed to the hospital.

They checked us in at the hospital, did an exam and got us to a labor and delivery room.  About 45 minutes passed as we sat in the L&D room (Susan, Megan, and I).  I went to check to make sure anyone knew that we were in there because no one came to get us set up or to check on us or take vitals, etc.  The nurse at the front said ....oh...yeah...we were just going to move you to another room.  So they came and did that.  Then we sat in the next room - again no one took vitals, or got us set up in any way.  After another hour of progressively escalating contractions Megan said "i feel kinda pushy".  That sounded serious so i headed to the front again and said "she feels kinda pushy".  This apparently was the thing to say because it got a real response.  In two minutes there were 5 nurses and a midwife in the room, saying things like 'did you just get here?', 'why is nothing set up in here?'.  They had to work fast because Luna was through waiting.  She was out five minutes later.

This was many times less stressful than Eleri's birth - which lasted for about 50-60 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing.  Megan's and Luna's recoveries have been proportionately easier as well.  We had the great luck of having a lot of family around over the Christmas break with which to share the excitement.  This was nice too since Eleri was not allowed in the hospital (swine flu regs.) so she had a nice time at home with her grandma while the 3 of us spent a day and a half in the hospital.

Luna has been a pretty mellow kid so far.  She eats every 3 hours.  Looks around a little before and after eating - and sleeps about 3/4 of each day.  She still has no concept of day or night - but i suppose that's normal.  I'm particularly shocked by how small she is - i think i didn't really realize that Eleri's been growing until i see them together and now Eleri's suddenly so big.  Strange thing with Luna though - she looks so much like Eleri that Megan and I both called her Eleri by mistake a couple times in the first few days.  Watching everyone fall in love with little Luna has been great fun - especially Eleri.  She's so very sweet with her little sister.  Every 20 minutes or so for the last week she stops what she's doing to go check in on her - stroking her head and saying how cute she is. 

And so... I guess this marks the end of Eleri's blog and the beginning of Eleri and Luna's blog - one of many things they will share.  I hope Eleri's cool with that in the long run.  She's excited about it for now.