Isaac's Blessing Day

We had Isaac blessed today. It meant a lot to us to have our close family come out for it, with most of the kids' Grandparents and Great-Grandparents come out for it, as well as most of their Aunts & Uncles (with just a few out of town and had-to-work exceptions, and Greg's sweet Grandma Verla, for whom traveling isn't that easy.) The girls picked out matching dresses (something they like to do for special occasions and, you know, days that end in 'y'.) :-) I wanted to get a bunch of fancy-pants-posed-and-pseudo-professional pictures of Isaac in his sweet white tuxedo (that's right, a full on white tuxedo . . . complete with tails and blue bow tie and cummerbund . . . my Mom made it for him. It makes me smile.) Alas, the boy slept right up until it was time to go to Church, and then was kinda fussy afterwards. So, we got some pictures of him in it right after Church in the arms of everyone who made it out to see him (except my sister Talina and her husband, who were self-quarantined. Or, at least, avoiding the baby, since Talina's been pretty sick until really recently). But we quickly changed him into something more comfortable, since babies (and pretty much everyone else) get a little cranky after an hour or two in a polyester tuxedo.) We'll have to do a mini-photo shoot another day. But another day soon, as he was pretty much busting out of the 0-3 month tux. It was hard to keep his buddha-belly covered for pictures. :-)

The girls were happy to pose for a couple pre-Church photos.

This pose of Annie's just makes me smile.

Greg and his girls. I love this picture. Everyone looks so happy, and Ellie's sporting her trademark just-a-sliver-of-eyes-showing-grin.

Ellie did get a bit pouty during photos though. So I pulled a similar pout.

Which cheered her up a bit, and amused Annie to no end -- thus, a smiling photo of all three of us girls.

Greg took this photo of Ellie and just loves it to pieces -- he declared it his favorite picture from the day (although there was a serious contender: a picture I took of Ellie napping on his chest. It'll show up later on.)

Here is my family, right after Church. Ellie was less than cooperative and laid down for pretty much every picture. But usually with her legs up in the air showing off her diaper, so this was one of the better shots. :-) Have I mentioned this poor child hasn't had a decent nap in two days? :-) It contributed to a bit of moodiness throughout the day.

Greg and I with our baby.

Greg's parents with the little man of honor.

Greg's sister, Aunt Andrea, with Isaac.
(You can see where my girls get their curls from!)

Grandma Ruth and the grumpy boy.
He's not even pretending that this tuxedo is comfortable and he's happy about wearing it. :-)

Great Grandma and Isaac.

Isaac with another Great Grandma and his only living Great Grandpa. Ellie just calls my grandfather by his nickname, 'Pete.' It cracks my siblings and I up -- none of us have ever really called him by Pete, but Ellie heard it one day and has called him just 'Pete' ever since.

My sister Aunt Lacy with Isaac.

Another of my sisters. Aunt Star with Isaac.

My Dad with Isaac. Ellie has also taken to just referring to him by his first name too, or more accurately, his nickname. A nickname that, again, NONE of us refer to him by but Ellie still somehow picked up and calls him.

This is 'Bobby'. My sisters and I giggle everytime she calls him that.My Mom, Grandma Karine (or "Neen" as Ellie calls her), with Isaac in the tux she made for him.

Mommy and Isaac.

My baby brother, Uncle Cody (or 'Doh-doh' or 'Doh-dy' if we're sticking with Ellie's names for people.)

My sweet Aunt Judy and Uncle Jerry, who have always been there for everything throughout my whole life. When I was telling Ellie, during her bath that morning, who was coming for the blessing, I was listing people off when she suddenly interrupted me and asked, "Uncle Jerry?" I assured her that he and Aunt Judy would definitely be there. :-)

Uncle Cody, Annie, Ellie and our friend Jovanny played out in the sandbox -- the problem was that all of the kids had been in Church clothes with no spare clothing to change into. So, they were all promptly stripped down to underwear and diapers -- except Cody, he had clothes to change into :-) There were so many cute pictures of them all -- but with the whole not wanting to put nekkid picture of my kids on the internet, I'm not going to post 'em. Except this one of Annie mostly hidden behind a sand castle. It was all modest and showed off one of their many cool sand castles :-)

Cody trying to spray me even though I'm holding my very nice camera. Weanie-head. :-)

Greg's second favorite picture -- Ellie crashed out from sheer exhaustion, right on his chest.

Grandpa Robert and Isaac again.

Aunt Lacy and Isaac again.

Aunt Star and Isaac again. Now I'm feeling bad for poor Talina and David who faithfully avoided infecting baby Isaac with Talina's nasty pseudo-whooping-cough-germs, and therefore aren't in any pictures. Sorry!

Lacy and Annie were battling with the Dora baseball bat and the plastic golf club.

Annie was getting really into it.

Lacy and Star were trying out poses for potential "Awkward Family Photos" -- this one was fairly effective.

Happy baby boy! (Much happier in cotton than polyester) :-)

After the family party, Cody walked home with us and hung around to watch the girls ride the 'big girl bike' . . . Annie loves to wear her helmet. (And her cute piggy tails were sticking out the side of it.)

Uncle Cody helping Ellie get a ride on the bike

This is Annie on her bike, riding right past Dad while he takes a picture -- we had to tell her later to keep her eyes ahead of her from now on :-)

Ellie playing on the fire hydrant.

All in all, it was such a fun day. I love having the family get together -- I'm especially fond of times when we're able to get 'both sides' of our family altogether in one place. I love for my girls to see their family as 'their family', not just 'this side' or 'that side'. I feel so lucky that we are able to have so much of our immediate family with us at these fun and memorable times of my childrens' lives!

Miss Attitude

Raising children makes one very aware of how quickly time moves. Like it seems like Annie was just born yesterday, and yet sometimes it already seems like we have a full blown (crazy, hormonal and moody) teenager around the house.

I was in the kitchen when I heard Annie & Greg come in, obviously in some kind of disagreement. (Turned out he thought it was bedtime, and she thought it was ludicrous she had to stop riding her scooter and come inside already.) As she turned the corner, into the kitchen where I was doing dishes, I heard her mutter, with a full on eye roll, "If you say so, Dad."

Sarcastic "if you say so's" . . . complete with snotty eye roll . . . she's four, people. FOUR.

This among many other Annie-isms, have me a tad worried for the tween years . . .

Big Girl Bike

Annie is thrilled to have training wheels on the bike our neighbor recently handed down to her. Both girls had on helmets in anxious anticipation the entire time Greg was putting the training wheels on. It was chilly outside, and past time to get ready for bed, so they didn't get to ride long -- but Ellie loved sitting on the bike and being pushed the length of the driveway, and Annie took it up around our circle once before she had to come in for the night -- it was a BIG hit. :-)

Isaac's Two Month Check Up

Well, that was fun.

The whole taking three kids to the doctor's thing. We were about to walk into the exam room when Ellie started shrieking uncontrollably, and eventually had to be carried into the room when coaxing (even with stickers) wouldn't work. Guess someone remembers the shot from last time? She soon figured out this was Isaac's appointment and not hers, and she calmed down. (Little did she know . . . flu shot.)

Isaac was fussy most of the appointment. Probably due to it being smack dab in the middle of nap time. But, everything checked out, and he was deemed 'healthy and huge!' Our doctor was extremely impressed by his size. Upon walking in the room, her first words were, "Wow! He's so TALL!" And, he is. But not as tall as he is heavy. Turns out our little chunker is now in the 96th percentile for weight. At 14.66 lbs. At two months old. (To put that into perspective of what's normal around here -- Ellie was 13 and a half pounds at SIX MONTHS.) No wonder his size two diapers are starting to seem so small. And why in heaven's name do I have any 0-3 months clothes out?! Time to pack up anything small I was even trying to kid myself into believing he could still wear. His height on the charts was actually down, percentage-wise, to 66% from 75% at two weeks old. But, our doctor took one look at the height on the chart today and said, "No way, he's taller than that." But never had him measured again, so who knows?

Not shocking for one of my kids, his head is a hefty 93rd percentile.

Everything else checked out, my kids were declared adorable, and nurses wielding needles started to file into the room. I chose now to explain to the girls they'd be getting flu shots. Poor things flipped the heck out. This may make me evil, but I actually had a hard time keeping a straight face while watching the sheer drama that was spilling out of them. Annie was shrieking, "It hurts! It hurts!" before the nurse even used the alcohol swab. The poor woman was all, "I haven't even touched her yet!" I nodded and said, "You should see when she gets her hair brushed." Annie started to calm down when I set her down on a chair with the bucket of stickers to sort through. (They had one nurse come in and take Isaac during the girls shots so I could tend to them, and so he wasn't freaking out from listening to them.) Next was Ellie. Poor thing was hysterical at this point, from watching and listening to Annie. We got her shot done, and she calmed down in less than a minute or so . . . when the nurse brought in dum dums. Next was the baby. He got his shots, cried for about 10 seconds, then settled down laying against my chest withing seconds of being picked up. Isaac was definitely the champ of getting shots among our kids.

By the time we left, everyone was calmed (and Isaac was sleeping in the sling), and we got outside. Where near-hurricane force winds made the SHORT walk to our vehicle a nightmare. Ellie was shrieking the whole time about the wind, crying and gasping and freaking out. Then she dropped her baby doll. Which proceeded to BLOW AWAY across the parking lot. I was trying to get Ellie out of the middle of the parking lot while trying to chase after it, and fortunately a good samaritan took off after it and brought it back to us after it'd blown half way across the parking lot. THEN Ellie dropped her purse and it took off. Sigh. Eventually, we got all of us into our van, all toys recovered and Ellie finally calmed down. Isaac slept through all of this (and through being taken out of the sling and being strapped into his carseat -- someone was TIRED!) I don't think we're venturing out any more today. Heck, I might even change back into pajama pants, just to assure myself we're done with outings for the day. :-)


Here's some 2-month old pictures of all three kids.
It's interesting to me that despite weighing WAY more than the girls, Isaac seems the least round and chubby to me. He's way taller and more solid than the girls were, but he's never had the same rolls and roundness they seemed to at this age, even though they were a lot smaller.

They do all have the EXACT SAME HAIR though. :-)

Bed of Roses

Well, not a bed of roses, but a rose blanket.

Poor Isaac . . . he has some perfectly masculine swaddling blankets laying around. But Dad (aka: the Master Swaddler) insisted that Ellie's old rose swaddling blanket is vastly superior to all other swaddling blankets so we switched Isaac to the best blanket in the house. No matter how girly. :-)
Not that it will be an issue much longer, at only two months old, Isaac is already escaping Greg's Swaddling-Grip-of-Death in less than two hours each night. Both of our girls slept swaddled until 5 months, give or take, so Greg and I are at a bit of a loss with what to do with Mr. Incredible here. Do you see how HUGE he is? How much room he takes up in his crib? (He already fills the bassinet in our room pretty much from top to bottom. I don't know how long we'll be able to keep him in it.) I'm excited for his appointment tomorrow, to find out how long he's gotten and how much he weighs.

Annie's bruised and battered face.

Except that it's just makeup. Blush, to be precise. Applied liberally to the general eye area.
The picture doesn't really do it justice -- when I first walked in and saw her I was shocked -- she looked completely beaten.

Ellie woke up with serious attitude and weepiness this afternoon. I was this close to just putting her back in bed after like 10 minutes. (It continued all afternoon and evening -- maybe I should've saved us all a lot of grief and just gone with my gut and stuck her in her crib again!)
Here she is right after she woke up. She got up onto my bed, where Isaac was chilling out, and curled up next to him and put her arm around him and pouted. It was adorable.

We did get her a little cheered up with a sibling photo shoot on the bed.

But not for long. She was crying again soon. And Annie really sweetly took her into her arms and tried to comfort her.

The only thing that made Ellie happy was getting to hold her little brother in her lap.

Annie enjoyed it too.

My (momentarily) happy trio . . .

Ellie and I posing for a self-portrait.

Isaac trying to get that ever elusive thumb in his mouth once and for all.
Annie gently coaxing his hand in the right direction.

Annie, Isaac and Mommy.

Ellie wasn't in that last picture because she was pouting again.
But she looked adorable doing it.

Annie, on the other hand, was more than happy to pose and smile for pictures.

Random Pictures of the Baby

Earlier today, Isaac spent several frantic minutes (while fast asleep) trying to get his fingers or thumb (or most of his fist) in his mouth. He happily sucked on his middle finger for a minute, but lost it before I got the camera out. Here he is trying again . . .

Almost got his thumb . . .

"Dude, what's up with the flash? You woke me up . . ."

Tonight before bed, I got a few pictures of Isaac's tummy time on his Boppy.
Stretching so big and tall . . .

Pleased with himself . . .

Chillin' in the Boppy . . .

Such a handsome little guy . . .

Isaac very much wants to be able to sit up by himself . . . here he is with a little help from the Boppy . . .

Pretty steady for a (not even) nine week old . . .

"Gassahoppas? Ere are you?"

I love going on family walks in the evening. The girls pile into our wagon, I get Isaac settled in a sling, and we walk. To the park or to go visit neighbors or just to walk the paths that surround our neighborhood. And now that the weather is perfect for evening walks, we're trying to get as many in as we can. This evening we were walking along some of the paths that separate our neighborhood from the one just west of us, and the girls were admiring the many grasshoppers that were hoppin' along. I told them I used to catch grasshoppers when I was just older than Annie. They were impressed. Annie wanted to know how one goes about capturing a grasshopper. I tried to explain my technique, but ended up just saying, "Let's have Daddy catch us one and just show us!" We'd walk along the path until we spotted one (in the meantime, Ellie was loudly calling out, "Gassa-hoppas? Ere are you?" It was adorable.) Greg would then try (repeatedly) to catch one, but by the time we got home and had scared away all the grasshoppers, we had still never caught one.

Greg is convinced that this generations' grasshoppers are much more quick and wily than the grasshoppers that were around when we were young.

I'm sure that's it. :-)