Lots of photos to share!

Little Clara is two months old already, and it's been quite the two months. I'll start this post with a few music videos from our family-- One is of Ben singing his rendition of Jingle Bell Rock with his adoring stuffed entourage, and the other shows one of Clara's first smiles. She is a happy baby!

During the first few weeks of Clara's life, she and I slept a lot, and Ben spent a lot of time with Will and his Nana. After we celebrated Clara's due date (when she was just over two weeks old), she started to spend a bit more of the day awake. She is still a great sleeper, and often sleeps up to 6 hours in one go at night. Hooray! Fingers crossed that this lasts. She has even slept through a few work-related meetings, as I'm keeping up with some research projects during my leave.

One of our nicest memories in June was getting up very early to watch the sun rise over the container ships in Point Pleasant Park the morning of the summer solstice. We were really happy to see at least 2 groups of other people out there to watch, and it was a clear, calm morning. 

                         

More Ben and Will time means some great photographs of Little B. One of his favourite activities right now is to make very long trains (and leave them in the trickiest places!). Often, the cars are grouped by colour. He still really enjoys running, climbing, playing, and splashing! We can tell that having a little sister has been a bit hard to get used to, but he continues to be very sweet and gentle with Clara and seems to be getting used to having her around. 

I love these two pictures of Ben, Clara, and I too-- clearly I need to take photos once in a while so that we have more pictures of Will!

A few weekends ago, we took a road trip to Cape Breton to attend the wedding of a friend of Will's from when he worked at Mountain Equipment Co-op. Will, Clara and I went to the wedding, and Mom and Ben came to Cape Breton with us. We really enjoyed the wedding, and spending some time in a different part of the province, but 4 hours felt like a VERY long drive. Let's just say that we had originally planned a road trip to Ontario in August, but will now be flying.

Just this week, little Clara and I had another type of adventure. She came down with a fever and because she was so little she had to stay in hospital for 3 nights to get IV antibiotics. Even in that situation, she was as calm and content as could be expected. The nurses were great and she seems to be doing well now. 

Spending 3 days on a children's hospital ward really helped me to appreciate how lucky we are to have healthy little ones, friends, and family. I'm also feeling very fortunate to have some time off work, with extra help to look after Ben. Will has had some days off work here and there, but can typically be found at work, struggling through a large pile of maps that needs to be re-organized by September. He has also become a voracious reader, and has read 7 books since Clara was born. We look forward to seeing Ontario/Quebec peeps soon-- we're currently thinking of a UK trip next spring, and would love visitors any time.