New Baby

A few hours after Jesse was born, his brothers and sister came home to meet him! Lydia was happy to be home after a long day away from mommy.

Jesse Daniel, born at 5:43pm on Oct 14th. 9 lb. 13 oz and 22 1/2 inches long. A little bit of dark hair and a wrinkled forehead. Long fingers and big feet.

Not sure why this pic. went sideways on me. This is my midwife napping during my labor. She was up half the night before delivering another baby. We spent the morning playing scrabble together and we chatted through most of the afternoon. I'm glad we planned on having this baby at home as I'm not sure I ever would have thought it necessary to go to the hospital until the very end. We may have had a baby in the car at that point!
I'll get more pictures over the next few weeks.

Modest Mom skirt Give-away!

My sister just sent me a great link to a favorite blog of ours - Passionate Homemaking http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2010/02/the-modest-mom-giveaway.html/comment-page-4#comment-21653
She is hosting a give away for custom made materinity skirts from the Modest Mom. Hop on over and enter! Modest mom also sells used maternity tops for very reasonable prices.

Neck Deep!

The snow drifts are taller than I am in places and the ground is bare in places. I'm taking pictures, but I have no way to upload right now. The wind just keeps blowing. When Lydia has her morning nap, I'm going to go out and see if I can find a route to the wood pile since the driveway is impassable. Maybe I'll take the boys with me. Yesterday William said, "Will we ever be able to go outside again?" They were itching to get out since the large box that they were using as a livingroom slide broke, causing some tears. They were sad until they realized they could still get inside the box and roll it around the livingroom.

Growing Up!

Here are some pictures of the kids from this fall. Lydia is wearing my dress. The one I wore for my baby photo. It is fun to have a girl. Her hair is long enough that I need to put little pigtails in the top to keep her bangs out of her eyes. She has finally taken off with her walking. She started a month ago, but refused to go more than a few steps on her own until this week. Now she will walk across a room, but is still rather wobbly and unsure of herself.

William is taking piano lessons and practices at least 1/2 hour daily! He loves it and tries to figure out how to play songs he knows.

Brian has been drawing a lot lately. He's getting quite good and especially likes to draw houses with windows and people looking out the windows. There are always some clouds and a sun in the sky. He also drew a pair of feet the other day, but the body wasn't on the page.

I'm enjoying watching them all grow!

She's Talking.....

.... with her hands! Lydia said, "all done," and "more" today. She was very pleased with herself. It is very useful since she wnats to eat everything we do. She kept saying "more" for applesauce and cheese and her brothers we excited for her. Of course she loved the attention.

We had ice cream the other day. William insisted on finishing cleaning up before he would come for ice cream. Brian wanted more and I told him we needed to save some for tomorrow. He announced, "I don't want ice cream tomorrow!" Curt said, "Funny children!"

William giggled. Brian, puzzled, said, "Where?"

Brian is interested in puzzles now. We have a book of Tonka Truck puzzles and he can do them all (35pc). William still loves maps and spends a lot of time reading and writing. Today he read a few books to Brian and then helped him do StarFall http://www.starfall.com/ - a website that teaches phonics. Brian likes to do the school things that William does, so I always try to find something he can do too.

Though William is super smart about many things, we are trying to not make a big deal of it. Don't want it to go to his head. He was almost apalled that Brian can't read! He doesn't remember learning to read and didn't realize it was something that had to be learned.

The boys were playing with cars in a waiting room yesterday. A man asked William if he liked Lightning McQueen. William asked who that was. The man said, "Have you seen the movie, Cars?" William said, "Well, yes, but I don't really like it. I like to do Legos, and read books, and write." I'm sure he can come across as being odd at times, but we like it that way!

We Miss Daddy!

Curt's driving truck again and we all miss having him home. The boys especially miss his bedtime stories and I miss his putting them to bed for me. Sometimes the days just drag when he is away..... Yes, today is dragging.

In alphabetical order.....

Yes, William now recites all 50 states in alphabetical order...... in under a minute. This he learned by looking at the state flags on the back of his placemat - of course listed alphabetically. So now he wants to learn the countries of the world. He's given up on alphabetical and has been writing them by region in his notebook so he can study them. I don't think he's quite normal, but we love him.
Today Brian started pronouncing his "L" sound. He says, "I would lllllike _________," and smiles, pleased with himself.
Lydia started waving bye-bye yesterday and is getting more sociable by the day. Still not crawling. Every time I get her on hands and knees, she pushes back until she is sitting.