Wait. We have a blog?

Honestly, Sarah and I didn't mean to take a hiatus from this blog. Really. It just sort of, er, happened. We just sort of looked away, and suddenly two months had passed. Furthermore, it was probably a bit unsettling that our last entry here, "the Morass," was Sarah talking about how overwhelming things had become. Honest, but not exactly a positive note.

And, looking back, February was a bit of a morass. Generally speaking, I try to be upbeat about things, but I have to admit that there's not a whole lot of love lost between me and the month of February. Almost without flaw, it seems to boil down to being a brutal onslaught of sickness, darkness and cold. I don't dislike Washington winters, but I've definitely grown disenchanted with February.

(Sorry, if that's your Birthday month.)

Anyhow, it's always darkest before the light, I suppose. And, indeed, things have gotten better overall, since Sarah's last post. Her work load doesn't seem quite as relentless, my work situation has improved, the remodel moves along slowly (I dream of the day I can do a post here bragging about our new, finished basement) and the kids are both doing nicely. Stella continues to be that wonderful, awe-inspiring, frustrating and charming thing known as a "Pre-Schooler" and Otto continues to develop in leaps and bounds. And, while he's not literally leaping or bounding yet, he's now crawling, sitting up on his own and starting to pull up.

Otto's sleep schedules even improved a little. Or, at least it had. For a couple of weeks, we were getting a couple nights a week where he'd sleep through the night. But, unfortunately, that seems to be short-lived, and he's now back to waking up 2 to 4 times a night... always with lots of screaming. We've, yet again, chalked his fussiness up to teething, but he's still only sporting two teeth; so maybe it's more a developmental thing. Sarah and I both remember Stella sleeping poorly right around the time she started crawling and pulling up.

Otto's also eating more and more solids. In fact, he's basically rejecting the bottle now, and aside from occasionally breast feeding, is embracing the world of solid foods with an inspiring amount of gusto. We've taken to calling him the "Trash Compactor" given his willingness to eat most anything in large quantities. As one of his Day Care teachers observed: "He's really serious about eating."

Anyhow, some pictures... (though, this isn't nearly representative, it's just what sort of jumped out when looking through our photos.)

After a warm early Winter, the cold weather definitely hit with a vengeance in the first part of 2012. Including a freakish ice-storm. Still that provided Stella with the opportunity to help me make her first snow man...

...and an opportunity for Otto to try out his Ewok suit.

But, eventually, the sun began to arrive. The first notably sunny day just happened to coincide with our annual wine bottling. It's much more pleasant to bottle wine, when you do it in the sun.

And time continues on.... Otto turns 7 months...

...and then 8 months. (He'll be 9 months on Tuesday!)

But, he's not the only one growing up. Our green St. Patrick's Day outfits allow Stella and I to revisit an old picture...

2009

...and 2012.

And then the Emerald City Comicon provided us with another chance to revisit a "classic" photo...

Stella at the 2010 Comicon...

...and Stella at the 2012 Comicon. Apparently, Stormtrooper's aren't quite so scary any more.

Soon enough, Easter had arrived. Here's Stella, posing in the Easter dress she picked out, with her first pair of braided pigtails, kneeling over a frog we found in my parent's backyard.

Then, this weekend, the four of us headed up to Mt. Vernon, a little over an hour north of Seattle, to go to the Tulip Festival. The tulip's were just beginning to bloom... but the daffodils were amazing.

So, yeah, things are going good overall. There's definitely still some bumps and hiccups, and too many sleepless nights, but in general things are going better for us than they were at the start of the year. If nothing else, the recent spat of sun has helped make everything seem, well, sunnier. Lots of working, playing and grilling in the yard.

Hopefully, with any luck, we'll get back into the habit of posting here more often.

Maybe.

(PS: If you haven't already, feel free to check out my new blog I've started: Explorer in Residence. It's one part self-improvement blog. One part cooking blog. And, hopefully, one dash of vaguely interesting.)