One More Post for Today

As I mentioned previously, my brother-in-law - Alex - is a fab photographer. We had a great time visiting with him and my sister this weekend and, in the process, were able to get some great photos of the family. Here's a few of Caroline:



I need to edit my hand out of this one, but I just love her expression and the lighting and everything. So precious!



Me and my girl. And really, she is. Dang - she looks so much like me it is freaky.



Yup - she's finally starting to smile, respond, and react to people. And her smile melts my heart! What a doll!



She was nearing meltdown point here, but I had to get a photo of her with the cute hair thing my sister-in-law gave to her! I put that thing on her head and just giggle!

There are a few dozen more, but those are a few of my favorites. Alex also put this together:



I will try to update soon with pictures of Soren, our family, New Years-ish time, and the latest on Caroline's growth and eating stuff. Look for more posts soon!

A Blessed Day

On December 28th, 2008 we were able to bless Caroline at church. We were lucky enough to have Alan's parents, 3 of his siblings, one of his brother-in-laws, and one nephew with us on top of my parents and my two brothers, their wives, and 5 of my nieces and nephews. Yay!

Caroline's blessing dress was made from my wedding dress. Cuz, ya know, when am I using that again? I'm not. I'm married to my forever sweetheart. I'd actually almost donated the thing Brides Against Breast Cancer but I knew I had to get it cleaned before shipping it off and I just never had the time/money to do that. Good thing! I thought it was pretty special and I also thought that she looked like a little Victorian baby - all dressed up. Thanks to my mommy for making the dress! She's brilliant like that!

Here's some pics of our special day:

Soren - The Best Big Brother!

Yup, still playing catch up!!

Here are some pictures of Soren with Caroline. He loves to hold, snuggle, hug, kiss, cuddle, talk to, and just generally love on his sister. Whenever I can catch the opportunity I will snap a photo of the two of them.

This was just shy of Caroline turning one month old. Soren loves to kiss her and remind her how much he loves her. He is "brother" to her and as she is getting older and more expressive I can see the love in her eyes when he holds her. It is so precious!



This is the same day - the two of them laid down for a little snuggle.



A few days later we got a few more photos of the two of them together.





On Christmas morning Soren took his place on the stairs - a tradition while he waits for the ok to come in and see presents - but this time he got to have his new sister with him.



He sang Christmas carols (another tradition) not only to encourage the house to wake up, but to soothe his sister who was slightly crabby (her bottle was waiting downstairs).

And this past weekend we had a wonderful visit with my sister, Staci, and her husband, Alex. Alex is a fantastic photographer and these are some shots he took of the two of them together:







We are loving seeing our kids together. It's still so strange to say "kids" and "children" and basically anything that pluralizes our posterity. However, it's a good kind of strange. Love these two angels!

One Long Post or a Bunch of Short Ones?

I'm trying to debate how to handle all the things I need to update about....

Let's just start with Christmas and we'll go from there.

Our Christmas was very simple this year, what with the purchase of the new van and all. Also, I did not send out cards and I failed at getting presents for anyone but my immediate family. (This statement reminded me that I had 2 presents to order and so I just did that). I hope to have cards of some kind out by February.

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas fun:

Soren got his annual pair of pajamas:



If you can't read the shirt - it has a Wii-mote on it and says "I work out everyday." It made us all giggle. Also, his pj shorts have the Wii logo all over them. He loved his PJs this year more than years past, I think. Especially the shirt. Caroline did not get any pj's this year because she has too many clothes already.

Here are my cuties together:



I'm telling you, whenever I catch a photo op with this two it just melts my heart. Soren is the best big brother ever and I love seeing him with his sister. They are just too cute together!

On Christmas morning Soren was excited to get lots of things including:



A telescope from Aunt Tiffy, Uncle Tim, and his cousins Ethan, Zack, Wyatt, and Mallory. We can't wait until the weather clears up enough that we can take it out and discover lots of fun things in the night sky!

He also received:



His favorite season of Dr. Who. (Season 4) He has yet to sit down and watch it, but he's been a pretty busy kid!

Check out the fun he and his daddy had on Christmas morning:



We had a very Wii Christmas - we got the Wii Fit (Thanks Mom & Dad!) and a bunch of games for the Wii including:

Wii Ski (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
Raving Rabbids TV Party (thanks, me! Ha!)
Active Life Outdoor Challenge (Thank you, Beth! We LOVE this one!)
DecaSports (Woot! Family gift)

I think there was one more, but I don't know. Anyway, they are all super fun. We spent most of Christmas day playing. We were supposed to go to a movie, but the parking lot was a mess because of all of the snow we had. Yes - we had a WHITE CHRISTMAS! That was one of the few for my lifetime and only the 7th for the Portland Metro Area in the past 50 years. So awesome! It's okay, though - our movie tradition did not die. We just went the next day and saw The Tale of Despereaux, which was very cute.

I thought I had pictures of Christmas Eve dinner.... Let me look again....

Nope, guess not - though I swear I took some! Odd.

Well, I shall leave you with this picture to end my post about Christmas. This is an adorable outfit that my friend Candice (back in Virginia) gave to Caroline! We were able to (sort of) fit her into it. You can't see the huge safety pin we had to put in the pants to keep them up! Hee hee!



So - a belated Merry Christmas to you all!

Still Alive

Yes, I am still alive. We are all still alive here at the house. Let's just say that between the holidays, family visiting, a baby being blessed, continued feeding issues, and the chaos of everyday life, the computer has fallen by the wayside.

I intend to update more frequently. Really, I do.

That being said -

Merry Christmas
Happy New Year

Mine were great! Maybe I will be able to recap soon.

Instead I leave you with promises of updates, photos, comments on your blogs, and responses to comments on mine. Or should I say a hope of those things instead of a promise? Probably.

Must go feed the baby.

A Few Milestones....

Goodness, life is nuts.

I had plans to post on Caroline turning a month old, but things got away from me. Anyway, it still happened, whether or not I posted about it. Here she is - all cute and lovable - on the one month anniversary of her birth:



She's all curled up, sleeping sweetly, and doing that adorable smile-while-you-sleep thing. Things I will remember about this first month include:

*Adjusting to no sleep for the first time in about 10 years
*Caroline always having to have her hands by her face
*Those beautiful blue eyes that can't totally decide to be blue or hazel or .. . . will they turn brown in the end? Who knows!
*The screaming... haha
*The lovable cuteness even when she's screaming
*The finger sucking... mine, not hers
*Spilling formula everywhere when she eats
*The drama that has been trying to nurse
*How TINY she is
*Her dainty little fingers that are so very girly
*Sucking her pacifier until she is almost asleep, then spitting it out, yelling, and falling asleep
*Her cute little nose
*Her huge feet that we like to call her flippers
*Spitting up everything and causing me to have to bathe her in the middle of the night
*Many doctor's visits
*Chicken legs
*Watching Soren and her....... they are ADORABLE together!

We headed off to the doctor again today for another weigh in. She has officially reached and surpassed her birth weight! Hurrah! She hit 6lbs 10oz today! We need to keep her on the super high calorie preemie formula until her 2 month appointment. Hopefully she will be able to transition back to nursing after that. That's what I'm hoping.

So, that's where we are at on the Caroline front. Now I really, really, really need to get Christmas together.

Well it's almost 10pm. And I'm ready for bed time! Hopefully we won't all freeze tonight - we had a storm on Sunday and another is supposed to come through tonight. Snow! Weeee!

I shall leave you with another picture of our princess:

Recap of Life in Bullet Points

Because my time is short:

• Caroline has gained weight, but still is not up to her birth weight. We are at 5lbs 15oz as of today. We are now on a preemie formula and I am pumping until further notice.
• Soren has something called Sever's Disease. Basically, his feet are growing too fast for his ligaments and muscles and tendons and all those funny body parts to keep up. The good news is that once his feet are done growing (they are the first thing to reach full growth apparently), it will go away. The bad news is that it will be rough for him to do a lot of physical activity until he slows down.
  
• Slows down? Ha! Soren has grown 1/2 an inch in the past 3 weeks. So I have one kid who won't stop growing and one who won't start!
• Caroline loves her hands and yells a lot when we try to tuck them into a blanket or hide them under little mittens. She must have them out - always!!
• I have been having a really hard time with nursing, so I am sort of grateful for the break I'll be getting. However, I really would like to see it work. However, there is concern that, even though I finally have my supply under control, that my milk doesn't have enough calories to get her to where she needs to be. Now my mom and I are joking that I only produce skim milk!
• We bought a new van. It's our Christmas/Birthday/Every Holiday for the next forever present. Our family just would not fit in our little car anymore - not when Soren has legs that go on forever and Alan has legs that go on forever and I am not short and car seats are big and bulky. So for the first time in 6 years we have a car payment. Yuck! But it's worth it - we love the van and are so happy for all the room it is giving us and the freedom I now have to go and do what I need to do without worrying how to get there.
• Soren gets to be the judge in a mock trial with his EXCEL class (also known as the highly capable program or 'gifted'). He is so excited and has loved the unit they are doing on debating. Maybe he'll be like his mommy and be in Speech and Debate! Woot!
• It's time to feed the princess, so I'm off!