January

After the hustle of the holidays, January was a pleasantly quiet month here. It was back to the routines - work, preschool and busy weekends - and, unfortunately, even a couple bouts of illness for little Madeline.

But on the last day of the month we got the biggest piece of news that we've received in, well, a few months - the gender of our new baby. And . . . it's a girl! Madeline is going to have a little sister. Madeline came along to the ultrasound appointment and patiently sat through the 20-minute exam, even though it can be a little hard to figure out what you're seeing on an ultrasound sometimes. And, while she says she was hoping for a little brother, I have a feeling that she'll like having a sister, too.

So now we turn to the next few months of preparation - getting the baby's room prepared and digging out all of Madeline's infant supplies out from the attic. The fact that we're having another girl means that we get to reuse all of those familiar and adorable clothes that we tucked away almost four years ago.

Another celebration we're gearing up for is Madeline's first real birthday. Madeline is a Leap Day baby, and this will be the first time that February 29 has rolled around since she was born. We're already involved in deep discussions about cake flavors and party themes!

Some pictures from the month:

Like I mentioned earlier, January was a quiet month. We found small things around the house to entertain ourselves, like bubble baths . . .

tea parties . . .

science experiments (such as seeing if a pot of water would freeze if left on the front porch overnight) . . .

making pancakes in interesting shapes . . .

and playing outside in the yard even on the coldest of days.

It's always fun to play catch . . .

until the ball gets stuck in a tree!

We even put in a cd of the Nutcracker and let Madeline dance along (she saw the Nutcracker Ballet in December and fell in love with it).

We even looked up some YouTube videos of the real thing and she danced along with the pros.