not our birthdays

On Saturday, we went back to Cindy’s hometown to celebrate her parent’s birthdays! Cindy and her sister joke that their presence isn’t really required now that Baby R exists. They basically don’t even get greeted anymore lol. Whenever we go home, Cindy’s parents rush to Baby R, bring her inside, and leave the rest of us outside to gather our things from the car. Just kidding hahaha. But really. In all seriousness, we love how loved Baby R is. We feel so blessed to have so much family and love around.

As usual, it was a great time catching up and celebrating another year around the sun.

On Sunday, we went to Jake’s hometown to celebrate his aunt’s birthday! It was quite the celebration and mini-reunion. We caught up with Jake’s newly wed brother and his brother’s wife. Jake’s maternal uncle got to meet Baby R for the first time, which was special! We ate, laughed, played games, and had fun!

Other Life Updates

Jake started Year 4 of his PhD program!!! Time is just flying by! Last year, Jake received a grant that allowed him to NOT have to TA, which meant he was able to focus his time and energy solely on his research. This year, he’ll be back to TA-ing which means he’ll need to find a balance between his teaching responsibilities and his research. Jake has got a few papers written, which is exciting! He and a colleague recently submitted their paper to a journal. Fingers crossed it gets published! Jake would love to get one publication in before he has to go on the job market.

Baby R has started rolling! It’s so exciting and interesting to see her develop and reach milestones. It’s crazy that we can see each step happening and how it all slowly comes together…

We’re so thrilled she’s rolling! But this also means she’s rolling around at night. At the beginning of the week, she hadn’t quite figured out how to get her arm out from under her body… so she got mad after she rolled over because she was stuck. It was so cute but also so sad. By the end of the week, she figured out how to unstuck her arm. Crazy how much she can figure out in just one week!

Baby R has also started intentionally grabbing at things. Her favorite things to reach for are Jake’s nose and beard. Cute!

As for Cindy, she’s enjoying the last few weeks of her maternity leave. She has one month left and will be going back to work in November. During her free time, when she gets some, she likes to binge her latest favorite show– Desperate Housewives!