Our time of cocooning ourselves at home is over and we’re slowly emerging into real life.  Last week, Ellie, Mark and I even managed a quick trip to the grocery store.  Not just any grocery store either – we went to Whole Foods.  Only the best for Mark’s first outing! 😉

We also managed to make it to church on Sunday.  It was so cool to see Mark welcomed into his church family.  Even though we don’t see many of these people outside of church, I still felt a palpable excitement in them to see Mark, to welcome him to church, and to see our family growing and changing.

Next week, Nik starts coaching tennis and then we’ll really be off and running.

I’m feeling pretty good.  The two-year-old is finally starting to sleep better, the 6-week old is sleeping fine himself*, and we’re starting to develop a new daily rhythm around here.  I even baked blueberry zucchini bread and pumpkin peach cranberry muffins today!

I must admit to feeling a bit panicky this weekend about hopping back into our normal activities.  It’s been nice to be really calm and laid-back for a few weeks.  But it’s also good to get going again and I think Ellie needs to see her friends a little bit more.

So, real life, here we come.  The 40 days are over and we’re ready to go!

*Please don’t read “sleeping fine himself” as “sleeping through the night.”  He still wakes up at least 2-3 times to nurse at night, often more.  It’s just that he and I have figured out how to nurse (on his part) and sleep (on my part, once I’ve helped him latch on) at the same time.  So our nights are [finally] not too stressful.