First smiles

If we make funny faces long enough at her, Alex started giving us big, gummy smiles this week. Last night, I managed to catch a few on camera.

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Update and new pictures

Things are going well in the Evans family household. Alex is now five weeks old and is growing like a weed. At her one month checkup earlier this week, she weighed in at 10 lbs, 6 oz (that's almost three pounds more than her birth weight).

She's starting to sleep better at night, although there are still good nights and bad nights. On a good night, she's slept for almost five hours before waking to be fed and then sleeps until about 5 or 6 before wanting to be fed again. On a bad night, she's up three or four times to eat -- or sometimes just because she wakes up. The poor girl caught her brother's cold, and although she's getting over it now, I think being congested sometimes wakes her.

Austin seems to love being a big brother and make sure she's involved in everything he does. When I get him dressed in the mornings; he wants her to lie on the bed beside him and when she's lying on her playmat; he'll often get down on the floor with her.

Austin sharing his crayons with Alex

Austin and Alex playing on the baby playmat

During the week, Austin still goes to the sitter's house all day, which gives me time to get things done around the house -- or more specifically, sleep when Alex sleeps. He's going to remain at the sitter's full time until the end of June and then we have to decide whether he's going to stay at home full time with me or spend a couple of days a week at the sitter's and the rest of the time with me.

He learns so much while he's there, and quite frankly, the idea that that learning task will fall on me for the next year is a little daunting. Just this week, he showed us that he can count to 10. And a few weeks ago, he started correctly identifying several colours (blue, red, black, yellow, green and purple). He knows the names of many animals, can carry the tune of several songs (his favourites being ba ba black sheep and Old McDonald) and can do simple puzzles unaided. In other words, he's a pretty smart little guy.

And he loves to be a helper around the house. If I'm emptying the dishwasher; he hands me each dish to put away. And if I'm doing laundry, he helps sort and put the clothes in the washer. And lately, Ryan has been trying to finish redoing our backyard and some days, Austin has been his little helper. Although, I think he enjoys playing in the mud more than anything else!

That's about all our news for now. Here are a couple of more photos, just because I thought they were cute:

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