On his sixth birthday

I was an emotional wreck. You see, my oldest child was turning 6 and my youngest was six days old. I felt sentimental and emotional all day. I got to go to his school and show pictures of him and talk about him and have doughnuts. It was great I loved the little program (for lack of a better term) they had for him. Russ' parents were kind enough to bring the doughnuts and my mom sat with Joseph in the car the whole time. Later that evening Russ' parents came and brought him presents to open. First was his own box of star wars fruit snacks. This kid loves fruit snacks so this was very exciting for him.
Then a colored pencil set with a sharpener. As you can see, also very exciting.

He really was excited about the coloring pad we just caught his face at an awesome moment.

Gracie did really good to just be excited for William. Maybe she is praying for a present for her right here? (She really is pretending to pray here I just don't know why) If she was praying for a present her prayer was answered.

They didn't want Gracie to feel left out so they brought her a small gift. She opened that wrapping and exclaimed, "a box!" You never saw anyone so excited to receive a box.

Don't worry, I showed her there was something inside.

Here she is looking at her new kitty knick knack with Grandma.

My brother Mark made William a white board topped box, filled with markers and an eraser. He loves it and so does Gracie. Sorry I posted so many pictures of William drawing, I just like that Russ took them in sequence.

And there you have Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon

Then we played "hot and cold" for him to find his last present from my mom. An Anikan Skywalker to put on his birthday cake for his party the next day. But that is for another post.

Invites

A week after Joseph was born was Williams birthday. Before I had Joseph William got to hand deliver his invitations. They were little boxes of candy and a Star wars invite and he delivered them dressed as Obi-wan Kenobi.

We only got pictures at one house. William loved delivering his invites, we will have to do that more often.

At 3 weeks

Okay these smiles are for real! Last night Russ was talking to him and he was nice and content. What we know about him at 3 weeks is:

• he is a little stinker and by that I mean he farts stinky farts all the time. I find it endearing. He doesn't have the new baby smell, he has the fart smell.
• He is a big boy weighing in at 11lbs 5 oz
• he is getting better with eating without spitting up and it does not take as long to burp him as it used to.
• he is not the best sleeper but he has done a 4 hour stretch once or twice. In fact last night he slept for 31/2 hours, woke and ate and then went back to sleep for 3 1/2 hours. I feel so rested!

• His brother and sister love him and can't keep their hands off him and he handles it so well. It doesn't seem to bother him to have their little fingers always touching, rubbing, and poking him.
• He likes the mam paci better than the soothie.
• He sleeps best in the swing or in my arms.

• He loves to be swaddled
• He has baby acne that I wish would go away.
• He has had a gooey eye but breast milk is clearing that up.
• He looks more like William everyday. He is our big boy and we love him.

Then came halloween

This year I didn't do much for Halloween. But my sister did enough for the both of us. Look at this costume my mom made for her. She is Marry Poppins in case you couldn't tell. That is a perfect character for Connie to dress up as. Sometimes while watching Marry Poppins I will see her say or do something and think, "Connie would totally say that." Connie was awesome and took my children to Schnef farms so Russ and I could rest and take care of the baby. And that is just what we did. Here are some pictures from her camera. William was Obi-wan Kenobi and Gracie was supposed to be a butterfly, but her wings were too heavy and were holding her down. She was so excited about this, in fact she just told me the other day that Connie took her on a carousel.
William and Gracie loved the rides and William started putting his hands up when he saw other people doing it.

Look at that happy face.

When she got home there was pee on her costume and blue stuff (Slurpee) all over her face. She was in heaven. But we had to get her ready for the Trunk-or-treat and that costume wasn't going to work. I asked her if she wanted to be a cow and she said yes.

Look at this cute cow!

Here is William showing off his baby brother.

And here he is with Nacho and the little lion. That is actually my brother Mark, doesn't he look great?

Next year I will be more involved with Halloween. I am just happy that my kids were happy and that they didn't get too much candy.

Perks

The day after Joseph was born here we are taking a rest. Can you believe he fit inside me? One thing that amazes me about this pregnancy is that I was not far more uncomfortable considering his size.So here I am enjoying some of the perks of having your baby at home. Sleeping in my own bed, no one coming to check (what is it they check?) on me in the middle of the night. My midwife, Stephanie and her assistant Jen came the next day to check on us.Here they are getting his huge footprint. They said this is one of the most nerve racking parts is doing the footprints and getting it right. That made me laugh.Then two days later they came back and here she is getting blood from him foot while I nursed him so he didn't even cry.And him getting weighed. He didn't drop much at all and I think he has been climbing the charts since then.I have loved having a midwife, especially my midwife because she is so great. Having a baby this way has been such a different experience. One hard part was remembering that just because I am home does not mean that I don't need to recover. It was harder to stay in bed at home than it is at the hospital. Good thing I had Stephanie and my mom telling me to rest.

And then there is this guy telling me to feed him, all-the-time. Who can say no to that face?

Mischief Maker

This little girl, as sweet as she is, discovered that with the baby around the adults are more preoccupied. Meaning she can get into mischief without anyone noticing...for the moment. Some of these things include unrolling a whole roll of toilet paper, getting "fart goo" in her hair all over the floor and Joseph's quilt in the time it took my sister to change Josephs diaper, color on herself and other things she is not supposed to, take off a poopey diaper so she can sit on the potty, etc.

I tried to explain to her while combing the goo out of her hair that even though we don't see her at the moment we do find out and then she gets in trouble. Hopefully our little chat will help.

Visitors

The night Joseph was born Russ' parents and niece and nephew came to see him. I love this picture of everyone gathered around the baby.They brought Gracie a pink baby doll that she immediately named Joseph. And William got an awesome encyclopedia about dinosaurs. I love it when he is excited about books.

It is so nice having loved ones so close to share these times with.