Christmas 2012

Though it may be ever so slightly belated, I hope that everyone had a wonderfully blessed and Merry Christmas this year! I know that we sure did. Very often, I'm approached these days by total strangers while holding Evie. Many of them say the same thing. "Looks like someone got their Christmas present early this year!" I always smile and agree with them wholeheartedly. She was by far my greatest gift this season. Ah, heck! All three of my children are my greatest gifts every year! Cliche, right? I know. But I'm okay with that.


This year, Christmas seemed to peak for the kids as far as the magical level goes. They were super excited about Santa Claus and I enjoyed the whole thing myself. Each year I do something that helps with the magic. One year I had a couple of jingle bells that "fell off Santa's coat" while eating the cookies we left. Last year I went out and left reindeer "hoofprints" in our yard from when they ate their reindeer food that Alex got from preschool. This year, Abby got reindeer food from preschool and I went one step crazier. Brace yourself. This is pretty crazy. I "borrowed" some horse poop from my mom and when the kids went to bed, I strategically placed the poop about a reindeer butt's length from the pile of food. When the kids got up the next morning, they promptly put on their coats and boots and ran out to the yard to see if the food was gone. Needless to say, they came running back in the house yelling, "The reindeer pooped in our yard!" It made me chuckle. Can you tell I have too much fun with this? Josh rolled his eyes at me. I just grinned like a dummy.

Posin' with the reindeer poop. Priceless!

Each year, before the kids get to open presents we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and we talk about what the reason for celebrating Christmas is. Each year, the kids seem to understand a little more and that warms my heart. They both enjoy praying together and with me and love having their Bibles read to them. This year, they each got special Bibles of their own that are geared toward kids. Alex's is set up like a really well done comic book and Abby's is a princess-like one with really great art work.

Santa brought them beanbag chairs and new blankets with new books to read and a new stuffed friend to cuddle with (Alex was Avengers stuffed toys and Abby's was a new mouse and bunny). Though I'm not sure Santa was taking into consideration the small, ever shrinking size of our teeny tiny house. What was he thinking bringing two giant stuffed pillows into our house?? But THEN my wonderfully thoughtful brother, Aaron, decided that sending each kid a mammoth sized build-able cardboard monstrosity was a good idea. Now my house has decreased in size by half. Thanks Uncle Aaron. Sheesh. Seriously though...they were awesome presents and the kids love them. I'm just not sure I'll ever be able to get rid of them. They were also, thanks to the combined efforts of Josh's folks and us, given Kindle Fires. I was extremely hesitant about this and am still unsure if it was a wise choice, but they seem to really enjoy them (on limited use of course). We'll see how insane they get with them. Josh loved the idea of course, but he has one of his own and I believe that he just wanted to stop sharing his own. :-)

Kids with their new Kindle Fires. Good idea or bad idea?

A forced hug for Christmas. Tis the season!

Yep...gonna have to smack my brother for these gifts.

Where is my floor?? Where is my living room???

Presents at my folks' house.

Abby giving Evie her new stuffed animals. (Abby was jealous of the horse.)

Evie and her first cow from mama. I did this with the first two kids too.

Christmas Eve. They get to open one present on this night and they chose to open their gifts from each other.

Evie with her loot. she slept most of the morning away.

Josh and his new Avengers shirt from Alex. Abby gave him a batman one.

And because it's so rare to get a picture with my mom smiling, here she is with her granddaughter.

It was a wonderful Christmas and I must admit that Josh actually working for the past few months made it much nicer. Here's hoping that you all had a wonderful time as well and from our house to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

1 Month Old

1 month old

The first month with Evie has positively flown by! I can't believe how much she's already changed in that small amount of time. She's a great baby and I am truly blessed. Here are some of the things going on with miss Evelyn Belle.

Sleep - This girl is the polar opposite of Alex and Abby. She is a great sleeper! Right from the first days at home, she started sleeping four to five hours at a time during the night. At first it scared the poop out of me. I was so accustomed to the waking every hour and a half with the first two babies. So when she sleeps long like that I still find myself sitting bolt upright in bed like a bed bug bit my butt. I'm getting used to it slowly, but it's still strange new territory for me to explore.

Smiles - She's officially smiling! It's so adorable. But true to form, she is mostly smiling at a wall. I know that seems a bit random to read, but the same thing happened with her bro and sis. For some unknown reason, when lying on the changing table, she will stare at the wall and just smile as big as she can. And it's only that one wall. She has a favorite wall. How odd is that? Don't get me wrong though, she's smilin' at mama too. The best time to get a smile is to give her to dad for awhile and then when I walk up to her and start gooing and gagaing at her, she just grins like mad. I love it!

Cooing - It's not just spit-up and screaming shooting out of Evie's mouth these days. She's starting to coo. The other new vocalization is more entertaining. Well...entertaining to me. Not so much to Josh. When Josh holds her and she starts screaming, it's the kind of screaming that Josh swears would be efficient as a useful form of torture to your enemy. It's angry to the max. When I go to relieve poor Josh from the woes of his screaming child, she immediately, through her crocodile tears, tells me about her horrible story. She still cries a bit, but it's more of a wispy cry that comes between the sudden wide-mouthed yell that isn't really mad, but rather a matter-of-fact statement spoken only the way a one month old can convey. I believe she's telling me about how angry she was that I wasn't holding her at that present time and how terrible it was. :) A mama's girl already.

Spoiled - No sense in denying it. Evie is spoiled. Well, they say you can't spoil a baby and that's probably true. But she get's held a lot. And she gets to take naps in someone's arms more than she should. She spent the first three or four days sleeping non-stop with me on the couch due to the c-section. I couldn't sleep on my bed so she stayed with me on the couch. Shhh...don't tell anyone. I know that was very naughty of me. :)

Thumb - She is desperately trying to suck her thumb. And guess what? She got it today. And she sucked it for a good long time too very contentedly.

Tummy-time - She doesn't get as much tummy time as the other two did, but she does great with it. She holds her head like a pro and can roll on to her side when on her back. She'd better get movin' with the rolling though if she wants to keep up with brother and sister. They rolled at one and one and a half months old. But no rush miss Evie. I'm patient.

Cold Turkey

I am proud...and slightly sad...to say that miss Abby has decided to give up sucking her thumb. It's been four and a half years straight of thumb sucking and hair twirling (once she got hair). Yes, I said slightly sad. It's a bit heart tugging when you see your little ones grow up and change. She started preschool this year and each time she gets sick, I explain to her that if she stopped sucking her thumb she might not get sick as much. She hates...and I do mean hates...being sick. Even though her colds are insignificant compared to the doozies that Alex seems to get, she despises having a runny nose. She gets that from her dad, I believe. Josh hates colds too. When I get a cold, I just deal better than Josh does for some reason. Probably because I pick up every single cold on the planet. (Thanks for nothing, you sorry excuse of an immune system!) Anyhow, telling her this seemed to make her consider the possibility of giving up her trusty and ever faithful thumb. It wasn't enough though so she continued to pop that bad boy in her mouth just as often as she always did.

Then the new baby came along and something in my little daughter shifted. She's became outgoing and a little bit more crazy than before. Her teacher commented on how different she has become since Evie was born. Josh and I both notice the big changes she's been going through. So about two weeks after becoming a big sister, I nonchalantly asked her if she was going to quit sucking her thumb now that she is a big sister. She said she wanted to quit. I was shocked and told her she could go pick a toy at the store for giving it up if she didn't suck it for a week. She counted down those days one by one and on the last day she picked a new Barbie (that came with a horse of course). The first two days were hard on her. She kept putting it in her mouth and then quickly popping it out when she realized it. When I noticed, she'd say, "I'm not sucking it mom. I'm just cleaning it off." The first two nights she also chose to still suck it at night to help her go to sleep. But that didn't last very long. She now hugs her stuffed animals while she sleeps to help her remember (her words, not mine). So for the most part, she went cold turkey. I'm proud of the girl. It was a challenge, but she succeeded wonderfully. Needless to say, she's as proud as can be too. Today she had to get a small cavity filled and the dentist made a big deal of her thumb and gave her two prizes. She was pretty happy and did fantastic getting a filling done. What a trooper that girl is! The dentist said she did amazing for a kid her age. Didn't even flinch at the needle! Heck...she did better than I do! Way to go Abby! You're a big girl now.

2 Weeks Old

My beautiful new baby girl turned two weeks old on Sunday. I can't believe that two weeks already went by. Evie had her two week check up and did wonderful. She was born 8 lbs 5 oz, was 7lb 12 oz when leaving the hospital and has already gained it all back plus some extra. She is now 8lb 12oz and also tacked on an extra 1/4" for good measure. All of her blood tests came back perfect and she's as healthy as can be! The doc says that she's doing fantastic and for me to keep up the great work. That always makes me smile. The only part that we are waiting on is for that stubborn umbilical cord stump to fall off.

As for me, I had my two week post partum check and all is well there too. My incision is healing good and the doc said I can start driving again. To which I silently replied in my head, "Uhhh...oops." I've been driving for more than a week actually. Turns out I wasn't supposed to drive for two weeks. Whoops! My bad! No harm, no foul though, eh?

Evie is different than her brother and sister. She rarely needs to burp (no matter how hard I try to get her to), she barely ever spits up, and she is sleeping up to five hours a night...in a row! Alex and Abby were tried and true waker uppers every hour and a half for the first two months at least. So when I wake up to no baby crying, I wake up with bells on. I leap out of bed like a tiger bit my butt and check on her only to find her peacefully snoozing away the night. It's very strange and will take some getting used to. Abby and Alex were also horrific spitter uppers. To the point where we had to have them evaluated for stomach problems. Evie is definitely making a new path for me to follow. It's wonderful though. I am still treasuring every single nanosecond. So here are some pictures that didn't get posted last time.

I look tired. Huh. No idea why.

Aunt Rita got to be here this time around. I was so happy that she could be there.

Have I mentioned how super awesome my mom is? Well she is. She stayed with Alex and Abby for two nights. It was so wonderful to have her help. She is fantastic!

This is me with the most awesome nurse in the world. I'm not sure I would have been so well off dealing with stuff if it weren't for Nurse Donna. She rocked!

Abby just can't get enough of her new baby sister.

Alex has the "been there done that" kind of attitude, but he is really sweet with her.

Tummy time!

My wonderful hubby with his new baby girl. Too cute.

I adore her!

Can't get away without this classic photo.

I'm a cow, but our first family photo of the five of us. :-)