yep, it’s been almost a full quarter of a year since i updated. life is busy, as you could imagine. i hope you’ll forgive me if i offer up a photo:

justin is now 10 months old, and at his last neonatal follow-up he weighed 16lbs, 2.5oz. and he’s a hoot.

look out, new year – here comes Justin!

Happy New Year to all. thank you for following along with us on our adventure in 2009. it’s had ups and downs. but we made it! we’re looking forward to a 2010 with many more ups.

as most new parents can relate, our house has been a bit of a mess. and by a bit, i mean completely. we’d spent the three months prior to bringing Justin home, driving up to Dartmouth and back. and spent the first three months of having him home, trying to get the necessities done and maintain our sanity.

for our sakes, i’m happy to report that Justin is a very good baby. he’s laid back, he loves routine, and he sleeps through the night.

developmentally, his complications of prematurity have pretty much gone away. he’ll go back to see a pediatric ophthalmologist, but the Retinopathy has faded.

he’s above the 50th percentile for weight & length for his adjusted age (calculated from when his due date should have been). he’s obviously still well below average for his actual age (as he was 3 months early). for motor-skills, he’s grasping and sweeping, but not quite yet rolling over. he’s trying to, though, it’s only a matter of time.

so, back to the ‘busy & visit’ – we’ve been wanting to get our house back into order, and we had the pefect excuse – we hosted my brother and his family (from Western New York) for Thanksgiving this year. it was the first time we’ve ever hosted Thanksgiving (and the first time we’ve had guests with children stay with us) so we put a lot of time into cleaning & organizing in anticipation of being outnumbered for a few days.

everything went swimmingly; we had a lot of fun, we ate turkey dinner when the turkey was done, we played board & card games, we had a relaxing time.

Justin went with all of us to the New England Aquarium. his cousins had a great time, and he watched the fish swim by in the giant salt water tank (i think at this point it’s still about the contrast) while i carried him around in a Baby Björn that we borrowed from our (super-nice!) neighbors. he loved it!

so, after a busy busy November, we’re left with great memories and a clean house. now, on to the next set of house projects.

enough said, right?

unfortunately,20-30mph winds and rain kept the trick-or-treater volume low this year. next year we’ll be taking Justin out in our neighborhood!

the chilly nights are a clear sign: summer is over. the school bus now makes its rounds at 8:15 and 3:45. windows closed, extra blanket back on the bed. and our first fall season as a family.

while taking care of Justin is our priority, we’re still attempting to finish up a few projects before winter hits (and then our projects shift to what we can accomplish indoors). i’ve also been extremely busy with web work, which i shouldn’t ever complain about.

while i’ve been coding, carrie has been working to clean and seal the deck. this is another one of the routine maintenance items that the former owners seemed to neglect. she’s got it all cleaned, has one coat of stain on the railings, and she’s waiting for the next clear day to continue staining.

landscaping under the deck will follow, and can continue even when the weather gets a bit chillier.  a good layer of landscape fabric should take care of the carpenter ant problem we had this summer (apparently, there is a lot of wood buried under the deck). we’ll see what else we can get done before … the flakes start to fly!

(and of course, these updates are a flimsy excuse to post a new Justin picture – enjoy!)