Silly Boy!

I love these facial expressions, but probably not the best choices for formal portraits! I am not sure what is going on with his tongue today, maybe a new tooth?!

There he goes....

Big bump on his forehead by this last one from trying to scale the backdrop. Now he has matching bruises on both sides of his head. I think a new nickname is in order, "Crash Gordon". Goes nicely with his sibling's toddler nicknames: "Captain Danger Pants" and "Monkey Girl".

Big Kid Foods are Fun!!

Here is our bearded baby after trying his first chocolate chip ice cream today!

He visited the pediatrician for his 9 month check up and has the all clear to basically eat anything that isn't a choking/botulism hazard. So we started with the good stuff! William is developing perfectly for his age and is a very healthy little guy. But still teeny tiny! We need to pump calories into this boy!! He is 15 pounds, 2 ounces and 26.5 inches long. Basically the size of Nick at 5 months and we all know how little he is now! I have six weeks to either fatten him up or at least keep him on the same spot on the growth curve before we scare the poor doctor. For some reason those pediatricians never like to see my kiddos in the -3 percentile?! Thankfully for William he is my third tiny munchkin so we aren't worried about him being little, we just grow them small in this family!

The Strange Sleeping Habits of Young Children

Nick always has as many large animals as possible in bed and at least one Superhero...
While Ellie sleeps with "the girls". Also known as (L-R) Clean Baby, Clean Baby's Cousin, and Dirty Baby (or Typhoid Mary as Paul and I refer to her). We like how the "girls" are all tucked neatly under their own blanket and share the pillow with Ellie.

You Caught Me Mom!

Our turbo crawling monkey decided to slip away from Mom and check out his Christmas present. If he can just get that leg up and over he'll be ready to ride! Obviously he has figured out how to pull himself to a stand. I'll keep you posted on the horseback riding...

Peek-A-Boo!

William learned a new trick a couple of weeks ago, playing peek-a-boo! His blanket is just perfect for hiding from Mommy. And as you can see, he gets a big kick out of this game! Sorry it's so dark, but it is bedtime...

I Love My Bath!

William has discovered the joys of splashing in the tub and throwing his bath toys out for Mom to retrieve.

Miscellaneous January

We took the children to the mall today to play in the kids area. They needed to burn off some steam in a big way. They had a wonderful time playing while William and I did some sale shopping. Paul stayed with the big kids and was thankful to have an excuse not to shop! Nick tired himself out as you can see, unfortunately Ellie did not. And William had a fine time flirting with the sales girls.

Ballerina?!

Ellie is pretty sure she is ready for ballet class in this outfit. Because all ballerinas wear sunglasses and carry princess wands. Classes start in March (must be three and a half) and she can't wait! But I'm guessing the dress code for class will cause some drama.

Santa Came to Our House!

Santa was very kind to our crew this year, and so were our family and friends! Thank you to all!! Nick had a very "Spiderman" Christmas, complete with a costume which he wore for the entire day. Ellie received lots of Princess clothing and a pink kitchen with all sorts of new foods. She spent today creating gastronomic delights in her new outfits. William of course was clueless, but did appreciate the fact that there were so many new things to chew on!

Merry Christmas to All!

Waiting for Ellie...

Nick woke up first this morning, surprisingly late at 7:10am. He had forgotten it was Christmas morning and came in to ask us what we were doing today; was it a school day, were we doing anything fun? We played along for awhile waiting to see how long it took him to figure it out (about 10 minutes). William was up next, as usual. And then the boys had to sit and wait for the little princess to awaken. Nick finally gave up and pulled the pillow out from under Ellie's head. And then we headed downstairs to see whether Santa had come...

The Children Were Nestled All Snug In Their Beds

One story before bed (The Night Before Christmas of course!) and they are off to dreamland. That's the plan anyway, we'll see how long it takes for them to settle down.

Off to Church...

Our little angels dressed and ready for church this evening. We arrived at 3pm for a 4pm Mass and found the church was already very full. So we ended up in the gymnasium of the school for the service. We had told the kids to be on their best church behavior as usual. But as soon as we sat down on the bleachers in the gym Ellie announced that "this isn't a church, it's a gym. So I don't have to use church manners". And that set the tone for her for the rest of the service. Luckily as it was the Children's Mass it was brief. Paul and I were definitely ready for a glass of wine by the time we made it out of there though! At least she looked angelic!

William at 8 Months

Here is our little man at the eight month mark. Sorry it took me so long to post, it's been a really busy week!
Sweet as ever, but now always "on the go". William crawls and has discovered the excitement of getting into everything! We are working really hard with the big kids to enforce safety with them. It's so much harder to baby-proof a home when there are two kids over three living in it too! And now he has his first crawling"war wound". He grabbed onto a basket to pull himself up and it smacked him right between the eyes. Poor little guy, he looked so stunned that it hurt! But it's only the first of many...

He loves to eat now, thankfully! And with the discovery of the pincher grip a couple of weeks ago, he is trying out table foods. Cheerios, Gerber puffs, biter biscuits, banana, and avocado seem to work pretty well right now. And he has been pretty successful with water in a sippy cup.

We are trying to tweak his nighttime routine a little. He still goes down between 5:30 and 6pm and wakes at 7am. Which is great, except that he is up once during the night. Strangely, always about thirty minutes after I have gone to bed. I think he must be psychic!

He is trying so hard to speak these days. So cute! He has learned to "click" his tongue, scream, blow rasberries, and says all of the typical baby things: "A Goo", "Da", "Dis", "YaYa", and my favorite "Mmmmmm" which is his way of calling for Mom.

We are all looking forward to the first Christmas with our little guy. Can't wait to see what Santa brings for him!

Eleanor's Preschool Christmas Concert

It was Ellie' s last day of school for the year and they had a Christmas concert in the sanctuary for the parents. So cute! But obviously very brief as the 40+ three year olds have an attention span of about 3 seconds at best. Elle looked a little dazed through most of the program, but did manage to pull herself together to sing "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". Here she is doing her reindeer antlers.

Sorry about the poor photo quality; very dim lighting, parents in front of me jumping up and down to take pictures, and an eight month old (today!) squirming in my lap.

We Saw Santa!!!

We took the kids to the mall to see Santa Claus today. Boy were they excited! We were very impressed that no one cried. William did the "tug test". Yep, it's a real beard. Eleanor wants jewelery and princesses, Nick wants a Hot Wheels race track, and William just wants something to chew on. (The Hot Wheels track was news to us, we hadn't heard that one before. Not sure if "Santa" can pull that off this close to Christmas)

On a side note: Wow has Santa become big business! The elves were catching everyone in line to ask what sized portraits we wanted to purchase of our little angels. And a "bargain" at only $24.95 for a 5x7!! Hurry, Hurry move everyone through like an assembly line. The kids barely had time to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas before the elves were hustling in the next group. Horrors, you want to take your OWN photo?! Only after the photographer traumatizes the children by taking her shots. "Hey! You, the little one. Look over here! Smile!" Sigh. I remember being able to sit on Santa's lap and rattle off a rather lengthy list without feeling rushed. Or maybe that's just the way it seemed to me back in the "good old days".

The Little Fashionista

Eleanor picked out her outfit all by herself today. Pretty cute! And matching! The beret makes the outfit I think.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Nick and Ellie had a fine time decorating Daddy's birthday cake. The theme being a "battle between the Christmas army and Disney Forest Friends". Don't ask me, I just do the frosting. But Daddy thought it was funny and that's all that matters!

William's favorite place to crawl is in the crib. Today I went in to check on him during a nap and found that he had crawled right out of his pants. Jeans at one end of the bed, baby at the other.

The reason why my house isn't neat and tidy...

Eleanor decided to decorate the living room for me while I was putting William down for a nap. Complete with laundry, ribbons, wrapping paper, boxes, magazines, a postal scale, santa hats, stuffed animals and anything else she could find in the ten minutes I was otherwise occupied. Please pray for my sanity this holiday season. Thanks.

Snow Baby

William making snow angels in a snow bank. (Not really, he actually can't move very well in his snowsuit. Like the little kid in The Christmas Story. But he was thinking about doing it, I could tell.) We are due for another snow storm tonight so I thought we should play in the snow while the sun is still shining!

P.S.- Happy Birthday Daddy! We are getting ready for your celebration, each in our own special way....

Silly Little Elves

We had lots of snow yesterday and today, probably six inches in our yard. The kids had a wonderful but brief time playing in it today. Ellie wasn't terribly thrilled with having cold hands and came inside after about five minutes. Nick made it a little longer, but didn't find shoveling to be very fun and decided not to help Paul with the walkways after all. The rest of the day they played with all of the Christmas decorations. I should say they are collectively "un-decorating" the house. I spend quite a while each day tracking down and returning santas/snowmen/reindeer etc. to their rightful places.

We had a very eventful and slightly terrifying time with Eleanor this week and therefore I am very behind with the decorating. At this point am trying to decide if I should just stop now and call it good for this year! (Ellie had a couple of hard falls in a twenty four hour period and ended up in two different ERs Wednesday night. After eight hours, numerous neurological tests, and a CAT scan it was determined that she had a closed head injury/concussion and she was discharged. She is doing just great, much better every day and will have no long term effects from her injury. The bruising is almost gone now, and she has amnesia for the entire fall thankfully. We are so very lucky, and so thankful that all of our prayers for her good health were answered!)

The Fisher Price Nativity Scene is a big hit with William.

Our William Joseph "eating" THE Joseph.