Merry Christmas!!

Even Hannah got matching Christmas pajamas-courtesy of Great Aunt Pat....and see..we got our fireplace working!!! Hooray (and thanks Dee...)

Christmas Doings

Hi!!

Christmas is FIVE DAYS AWAY!! Im so excited!

Here are some pictures from last weekend...we made Santa cookies and watched a lil' football.

Daddy and the babies measuring powdered sugar for the icing...
Matthew LOVES to smell things....esp. the vanilla!
Caitlin posing for the camera while daddy does all the work
Mommy and the big kids decorating
Watching a little football with daddy
Don't they look alike???

13 days till Christmas!

We're all getting holiday happy around here...we've got our (minimal) Christmas decorations up, and the kids are being especially nice to one another. (they know Santa's watching!) Monday and Tuesday they each had a Christmas program at the preschool which was wonderfully entertaining for those of use who got to watch. Matthew's class was hilarious! It was a bunch of three year olds trying to out sing one another. Matthew received the award for being the best singer in the group and we were so proud. He has spent the past two weeks practicing all the songs ALL the time (my personal favorite was "Little Gray donkey, clip clop clip clop, all the way to Bethlehem"; very very cute). Caitlin's performance was slightly more organized and she did a WONDERFUL job. She knew all the words to all the songs, and looked beautiful up there in her red Christmas dress and (faux) fur lined sweater.

In typical Caitlin fashion, she was oh so serious during the performance-this was strictly business folks-no time for waving, smiling or silliness. She cracks me up.

We have had the most wonderful weather for the past few days which has allowed us to go play outside during the afternoons; the kids LOVE their backyard. They play on the playground constantly and practice playing t-ball. They are getting very good at it!

Matthew playing outfield

Caitlin whacking the ball.

Hannah can't stand to miss any of the fun...and loves to be outside. Today I caught her looking at the mobile on her swing. So cute!

And of course the peanut butter puppy has to be in on the fun. She would LOVE to be able to play outfield (and chew the baseballs) but she knows better. Just a ratty old tennis ball for you Chass!

When they need a break they just come and hang out in the Georgia chairs.

...or roll around in the grass. Life is good!

Hannah is doing well..aside from an ear infection that is. However she is getting on more of a schedule-we're able to put her to bed at 8 with the kids (usually; though its 9:00 right now and she has just gotten daddy to get her up for some playtime. Oh well) and she'll get me up only once or twice in the night to eat. Which isn't' too bad.

Ok, well actually she called daddy to tell him to get mommy because it's been 5 minutes since she last ate and she's famished! So I must go. More later.

Hannah's New Swing

Merry Christmas mommy Hannah!
So nice-I don't even notice my ear infection...

Good Morning!

It's Wednesday morning, which means Caitlin and Matthew are both in preschool and I have a few minutes for blogging.

Things here are going well-yesterday I took Hannah in for her 1 month checkup and the doctor said everything looked good. She weighs 9lbs, 7oz (50th percentile) and is 22 inches long (75th percentile) and her head is only in the 25th percentile. (i can't remember the exact measurement). So she seems to be thriving. However she does seem to have a bit of colic-especially in the evening...she gets very fussy, and scrunches her little body up and acts so uncomfortable...nothing will soothe her except for being held (thank HEAVENS for my Bjorn!). Hopefully this will pass.

Caitlin and Matthew went with me to Hannah's appointment and while we were there I was telling the doctor about how they have had these horrible colds (no fever, just runny noses and coughs) for about 2 weeks. He kindly offered to take a quick look at them and determined that they needed antibiotics (some bumps on their throats, and redness in Caitlin's ear)-so now they are finally starting to get better. Im so SICK of all this sickness around here...I swear we are singlehandedly keeping Kleenex in business-

Other than being sick the big kids are doing well. They continue to love preschool...Matthew got his first invitation for a playdate the other day. Drew is the only other little boy in his class (10 girls, 2 boys) and according to his mother Drew spends all day talking about Matthew...so the two boys are getting together this saturday to play in Drew's "office"...evidently Drew loves office things. Im going to have to find out more about this.

Since Caitlin found out about Matthew having a playdate she has been at me to talk to one of her friends moms about a playdate for her...Im feeling pretty shy about doing that, but she really wants Aubrey to come over and play. So I'll probably just bite the bullet and do it. However she is very excited because daddy has promised to do something special with her while matthew is at drew's.

Matt and I are still LOVING the new house...getting it decorated for Christmas has been so much fun!

That's about all my news..I have one picture to post-titled, "The reason I'm not sleeping anymore". And yes, that is my side of the bed....

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

This year, Matt and I have so very much to be thankful for...our beautiful new baby girl, a new house, wonderful families, friends, and last but not least, THE RAIN!! After a LOOOOONG time without rain we finally got a good dousing last night and this morning-I don't think Ive ever been so glad to see a cloudy sky! What a great Thanksgiving gift...God is good!

I have so many pictures to post from the past few weeks-I finally found my card reader so I can post them. Obviously these have been a busy couple of days for us...one week ago we started the big move, and Im finally starting to feel settled in. (except for the items that mysteriously disappeared from of the moving truck on their way here...measuring spoons, and the dvd remote among other things...I assume we will find them right after we replace them :))

One of the biggest events here was Hannah's Baptism. She cried during the entire ceremony until the water was poured on her head...when that happened she became immediately settled. Im going to have to remember that little trick.

Hannah and mommy before the Baptism.

We were fortunate enough to have lots of family come in to help us celebrate the Baptism and watch some football with us-it was so nice! All the kids wanted to do was play on the playground...

Uncle Tim was supervising....

The cousins...minus Hannah.

Happy Sarah!

Caitlin and Callie were so glad to see each other!

Will and Gustav both trying to slide first

Today was Hannah's first Thanksgiving. I think she was mostly thankful for her moses basket.

Turkey dinner and Heineken...what more do you need?


In honor of the big day, we gave her her first "real" bath...she hasn't decided whether she likes it or not...

Our three babies

This Weekend

In an effort to avoid packing, (we close TODAY!) Ive decided to blog some of the pictures from this past weekend. We took the kids to the duckpark for Hannah's first trip there. She loved it. Or she would have if she had stayed awake long enough to look around. Daddy was wearing her in the Bjorn and after a few minutes of fussing she conked out. Caitlin and Matthew enjoyed the playground as usual and tried out some new tricks.

Here are the pictures:

Hannah still has pretty bad jaundice..her numbers have only gone down to 12, so we have started taking her over to Nana's house to get in the sun. She's our little exhibitionist; takes off her clothes and sits in front of the window half-naked. And LOVES it! As soon as the sun hits her little body she stretches out like a cat and goes right to sleep-its so cute!

Today I had Caitlin and Matthew's conference at preschool; they are both doing very well. Caitlin has "mastered" all of the concepts except for 1. learning her phone number (ive never taught her since we only use our cell phones. However her teacher says I need to do so...hopefully she'll get it pretty quickly) and 2. counting past 49; apparently she goes from 49 to 80. Barbara (her teacher) said that when she gets to kindergarten there is a "100 Club" that all the kids want to be in, but you can only get in if you can count from 1-100 without any help. So i foresee quite a bit of counting in our future.

Matthew's teacher was kind enough to squeeze us in this morning for his conference as well so we didn't have to make 2 trips to the preschool at 730am this week. He is also doing very well. His teacher is really great; she really tries to teach them instead of just doing open play all the time (which is what Caitlin did last year). So he is learning to recognize all his uppercase letters, numbers, and his own name (he's having a bit of trouble with that) He also is learning to trace and to sort things by color, size and shape. Overall Annette (his teacher) was pleased with his progress, and was very complimentary toward his behavior.

So it was a good conference day. Hannah Bo was not all that well behaved there; she cried and squirmed until i picked her up. But I guess she has a few years to learn to behave at preschool right?

Go Dawgs!!!

The Latest

Hannah (or Hannah-Bo as we call her) is snoozing this morning, so I thought I'd take a minute to post. Things here are going very well...a lot less chaotic than I expected. The only big worry right now is Hannah's jaundice. Although her numbers are not high enough to be serious, they are not coming down the way they should. She's had to go in 3 times to get blood drawn from her little heel (which now looks like a pincushion) and she's only gone from 15 to 14-and she should be between 0 and 2! They haven't suggested putting her under the lamps yet...they just want me to feed her as often as I can to help flush the jaundice out. Matt and I have also been trying to get her outside into the sunshine..so hopefully this will all be over with soon. Other than the jaundice she is doing well. She sleeps at night for 2 to 3 hour stretches and during the day she is getting more and more awake-I just love seeing her little eyes when they are open! She likes to sleep either in her Moses basket or at night, with me in the bed. At this point I don't mind having her there...it's so nice to wake up and have this tiny thing nestled up next to you. I just love having a baby in the house again-and Hannah is especially sweet.
Caitlin and Matthew are just the best big brother and sister. Matthew loves Hannah, and whenever he sees her he says "oooooooo Hannah!!" in the sweetest voice. He also has decided that it is his responsibility to inform me whenever she 1. cries, 2. has a smelly diaper, and 3. opens her eyes. He's like a little monitor. Caitlin loves to do "Hannah things"...help me change her, and give her wipey baths. They are both so helpful, and pretty understanding about the attention she needs-mostly I think because they like to play together so much. Now I'm not saying they have been perfect..>I've definitely noticed some behavior changes in them-Matthew has gotten pretty hyper lately-and acts out for attention..either by being really bad, or just extra silly. And Caitlin has decided that she prefers to do what she wants to do more than what I want her to do. So when I tell her to do something, there's about a 50-50 chance that she's going to do something else instead. But we're working on all these things, and overall I'm very proud of how they are handling having a new baby around.
They both still love preschool, and thanks to Daddy and Nana they haven't missed all that much since Hannah was born. Next week is conference week for them, so I'll have progress reports on both of them after that.
Next week is also our closing on the new house-I'm still in shock that we are actually about to move-we've been planning this for so long! And it is going to be so amazing to be 3 minutes from preschool, 2 minutes from the library, and only 25 minutes from Matt's job. It's going to be great!! Especially being able to save all that money on gas!

Thats about all my news...Here are the latest pictures:



Brand new baby picture-when Hannah was first born the nurse commented that she had "more chins than a chinese phonebook!" Not all that flattering but you can kinda see what she's talking about here....

Tired but very happy parents
First picture in the new house-last pregnant picture of mommy
Our dream house!! We close in a week....

Please pardon my powder...mommy can't resist the smell of baby powder and went a little crazy...And this picture shows off my rosy cheeks so well!
Daddy and Hannah
Happy Halloween!
Checking out their new baby sister
Dee and Hannah

Halloween

The big kids had their fall festival at preschool this week, and since I was not able to attend, Nana took them. They had a great time dressed up as batman and princess butterfly. I didn't get any trick or treat pictures, so these will have to do as costume pictures. Also I've thrown in some of Hannah, who is doing very well...except for the whole sleeping during the day and being awake at night-but we'll work it out.