Christmas

Every year we take a picture with the gingerbread house that we make, and usually this picture becomes our Christmas card picture. This year I had a cute Santa suit for Sadie to wear and "Christmas dresses" for the big girls, but we had a hard time finding a time when: 
a. Sadie was awake and also dressed in her Santa suit
b. The girls were in a good mood and in their dresses
c. Joel was home from work in time to do both a and b

We kept the gingerbread house on the mantle and kept waiting for all of the above to magically come together. Then all the sudden it was Christmas Eve and we still hadn't taken our picture. So we ditched the Santa suit idea and just took the picture as is! We took a few family pictures and thought they were good enough--then Sadie started crying and was ready for bed. Suddenly we remembered that we forgot to put the gingerbread house in the picture--so we had to do one more! Here's the final picture-

We went ice skating again this year. The girls loved it and kept saying things like, "Look! I'm really skating!!"  They made up a "rule" that each time they fell they had to come off the ice and get a sip of hot cocoa. The cocoa was gone in no time!

In Larkin's letter to Santa she asked for a stuffed zebra, and Willa asked for a snowflake. Santa brought Willa a snowflake but it melted, and he got her a penguin too!

Holding "Pengua" and "Zebrie"

We opened gifts at our house Christmas morning, then headed to Cat-Mama's and Papa's for a big meal and more gifts!

 Sadie slept through most of the picture taking opportunities on Christmas. Here she is on Christmas night wearing one of Larkin's old outfits!

Quote

"Mom, I knew our baby would be cute, but I didn't know she'd be this cute."

Growing like a weed!

Little Sadie Brynn isn't so little anymore! At 9 weeks she was 12 lbs, 10 oz (90th percentile for weight!). A total stranger even stopped us to take a picture of her big cheeks!! 

She's still a pretty easy baby--she sleeps a lot (usually takes 2-3 hr naps), smiles easily, and rarely cries very long. She's at the age now where she can focus pretty well and track things--so she studies the girls intently and likes to be walked around the house.

Mesmerized by the mobile!

We've all settled into a routine and the girls can't get enough of her. That wasn't the case the first week--Larkin wrote me a note that said, "I hate you because of the baby." Yikes!! She didn't hate Sadie--just was mad that I couldn't spend as much time with her. All is well now though and almost every day Larkin says something along the lines of, "Mom, I'm so happy we have a new baby!" The girls fight over who gets the most attention from her. Willa always gets frustrated and says things like, "I want her eyes to look at me!!"

Two of the five chins are visible here!

Naptime in the swing--one of her favorite places

She loves taking baths--hardly ever cries and always passes right out afterwards!

first hike with all three

One of our favorite things about our neighborhood is the nature trail that's close to our house. We've been going to it for years and have so many memories there. In our "early days" before having kids, we'd take Harley there twice a day on most days, and watch the sunset there after work. When Larkin came along, we packed up the jogging stroller and walked the whole trail almost every day. We went so often that we even had "trail friends"--people that we met while walking the trail and who usually walked it each day at the same time we did. Once Willa came along it was more of a challenge to get there regularly, but we still would go at least once or twice a week.

This past summer was a brutal one, and then with being pregnant and then having a newborn--we hadn't been to the trail together in months. So one afternoon I decided it was time to go! Joel was at work but I loaded all three girls and the dog into the car and drove off to tackle the trail.

Here we go!

No walk is complete without the "perfect stick"

Willa marking the trail "in case we get lost"

snack time!

I had Sadie is a baby carrier on my chest and we all walked the entire trail--which is over a mile long! We did pass someone on the trail and I was tempted to ask him to take a picture of all of us because I was feeling quite accomplished! I didn't ask him though-but I wish I had.

Once we got back to the van, Sadie woke up and laughed for Larkin. I wouldn't call it a full laugh, but it was the closest she's gotten to one. Thankfully I had my iphone in my pocket and captured the moment!

Afterwards Larkin said, "Mom, I taught her how to laugh, and now I've got to get busy on teaching her lots of other things!"

We drove home and later that night when I was tucking everyone in bed, I realized that I hadn't seen Harley in a while. Yep--I had left him in the car for three hours!! Regardless, the trip was still a big accomplishment in my book!

Christmas season in a nutshell

Elf

The latest and greatest these days for those parenting preschoolers is to have an "elf on the shelf." The girls named our elf Skittles. Skittles came with a book that explained how he flies to the north pole each night to tell Santa if you've been good each day. Each morning he returns and "lands" in a different spot in the house. If you touch him though, he will lose his magic and can't fly back to see Santa.

Each morning we hear the girls tiptoe out of bed and look all around the house to find him. Usually when they find him they start squealing and giggling. One day the elf was on Willa's nightstand and after we had tucked her in bed that night, we heard hysterical crying. Joel and I ran out and saw Willa hyperventilating. She cried, "I accidentally touched the elf!! Now he's lost his magic and can't see Santa anymore!!"

On this morning the elf got into some chocolate chips! Larkin said, "It's ok mom-he's still a good elf. I bet he was going to take some chocolate chips to Santa!"

Singing

Here's a picture of the girls (front row, on the right) singing Christmas carols at a nursing home with some friends from our neighborhood. They have a lot of songs memorized now and get so excited when we're out somewhere and they hear a song that they know. They love to change up the songs too. Their latest favorite is to sing, "Sadie the red-nosed baby." They change all the words to make sense with Sadie--"they never let poor Sadie join in any baby games."

I love that Willa changes the last line from "you'll go down in history" to "you'll go down in herstory!"

Shopping

Did you know that when you have a baby car seat hooked up to the shopping cart at Target it's almost impossible to see your other children walking in front of you? Just ask Larkin and Willa's ankles!

Here's a picture of Willa at a bookstore when we were out shopping together. I like to let my kids dress themselves (hence the bopper headband).

Night Tree

There's a book called Night Tree by Eve Bunting that I really like--it's about this family that goes and decorates a tree on Christmas Eve for all the animals in the forest. They fill the tree with all kinds of treats for the animals. We did the same thing, and the girls were so excited to get all the treats ready. They cut apples and threaded them onto raffia, made cranberry chains, and a ton of other tasty treats!  We went out one night in the dark to hang it all up and in the daytime we go look and see what got nibbled. Definitely a fun tradition that I hope we'll keep up from year to year!

Santa

Ho Ho Ho! Still amazed that all three girls are looking at the camera and seem happy!!

November

When a friend of mine had her third child, she said that she hardly ever had time to check her email or do any work on the computer. I remember thinking, "Really? How hard is it to check and reply to an email?!" Well, now I know. It is close to impossible. If I'm not busy driving the girls around to pre-k, ballet, the park, or the grocery store, then I'm at home trying to clean, cook, and feed/change/rock the baby, while also playing with the girls. If I just so happen to have a few minutes of down time, the last thing the girls want to see me do is fire up the computer!

Anyway I'm just explaining why my blog posts will probably be far less frequent now (at least for a while) and if I don't reply to your email for a week, you know why! :)

Here's some recent pics:

The girls snuggling with Sadie one morning in my bed. Larkin is singing Sadie a song, and Willa is telling Sadie all about her stuffed animal named "Mouse-rat". Sadie just looks around and soaks it all up!

Joel checking his fantasy football stats. Sadie is not impressed.

One day I was really tired and dropped Larkin off at school, took Willa to a drop-in daycare place, and then raced home with hopes of taking a nap. I got Sadie all snuggled up in her swing and thought for sure she was in a deep sleep. Just as my head hit the pillow I heard some baby squeaking sounds. I looked over and saw these big eyes staring around! She does this to us a lot-we call her the queen of cat-naps!

Yes, they are 5 yrs and almost 4, but somehow they found this baby play gym entertaining enough to play with for over thirty minutes! Here they are pretending to be babies and they thought it was hilarious.

Grandma and Grandpa came down to visit for Thanksgiving. We mainly hung out at home but did make it out to the botanical gardens one day!

Snuggling with Boat Mama on Thanksgiving day

Smiling Sadie! She smiles the most for Joel

She loves her changing table and will sit here happily for long stretches at a time!

Sensory overload for Sadie. The girls said they were "entertaining" her with all kinds of dance moves!