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.

waiting for baby

Before the baby came I felt a urge to have some good family fun time because I knew things would have to slow down once he came. One Saturday morning we got up and went to Ihop because nothing sounded better than their buttermilk pancakes when I am pregnant. I know, I am way classy. I love the below picture because Gracie is cross eyed. I could look at this and laugh for hours. In the picture they are playing Marry Poppins when they take their medicine. This is also one of Gacies favorite things to play.
Then the kids got this special Halloween pancake.


They were both pretty happy about it, as you can see.

Then we took off to a pumpkin patch. I am actually not sure wich one, but it is in Queen Creek and it is not Schnef Farms.

Russ was pretty proud of himself for dinging this bell.

William couldn't quite do that one but luckily they had a kid size one. He couldn't get it at first, but we told him to keep trying and he finally got it. It was great to see him saying, "practice makes perfect" instead of getting frustrated and giving up.

We headed off to see some animals.

The three little pigs. Now Russ wants to get a pig.

Face cutouts are so great.Gracie saw someone else with a popcicle and since it was quite warm we gave in.

They had a bounce house. It doens't matter where we go, if there is a bounce house my kids have a blast.

I could not resist these mini pumpkins. They were too cute.

I made their candy corn clothes. That is what happens when I find fabic for super cheap and look at it and say, "it looks like candy corns". Plus my kids love candy corn. I still need to take a picture of them with Joseph in his candy corn onsie.

It was a very fun family day.