"Baby"

For Christmas one of the gifts that Annaliese gave to me was a booklet with writings from all her classmates.  Her class had gone on a writers workshop field trip.  Here is Annaliese's entry.  I think hers was the best. It is so interesting to me to get her perspective on the day she came to the hospital to meet her new sister.  And I have to say the details she remembers are right on. 

BABY by Annaliese

Annaliese, Avrie, Adeline...another baby was coming to our family.  Those names were hard to come up with.  One day, about a week ago, Dad, my sisters and I went to the hospital.  When I entered the hospital room where my mom was, the first thing I saw was an ivory curtain with leaf patterns on it.  Then I saw her. Just a burrito with a diaper, a onesie and a hat.  Her eyes were closed, but she had a peculiar nose.  I hugged my mom.  I stared a the TV screen with boring, soothing nature videos.  Music played quietly to soothe the patient.  "Look at the city!" said one of my 7-year-old twin sisters.  I stared at the lights illuminating the skyscrapers, the cars, the people.  A hazy purple sky spread over Chicago.  "I want to live in a skyscraper!"  I cried.  My baby sister winked at me as I held her.  Her nickname is Winkie.  Now she is home.  She is one-and-a-half weeks old.  Althea is truly the best.

A Weekend in December

This little girl had her 2 month check up.  She's perfect and healthy!  What a blessing!  She is in the 95th percentile for height (24.5 inches) and 75 percentile for weight (12 lbs).  She's growing so fast.   All her 0-3 month and some of her 3-6 month clothing went next door to our neighbor who has a baby just a few weeks younger and much smaller.   She started smiling and cooing a few weeks ago and we are loving it!  She has started to prefer keeping her head turned to the left so we are constantly trying to get her to turn right so that she doesn't end up in a helmet like Annaliese did.  She also got shots at this appointment.  She did not like that at all.   Last time she was pretty mellow.  Not so this time.  I finally got her settled down afterwards and she slept for 3 hours but when she woke up....wow! Never have I heard her scream like she did that day.  Thank goodness for Tylenol! I felt so bad.  She was miserable.  Tylenol took the edge off and before long we had our sweet happy baby back.

This weekend we got some awesome snow.  "Sledding Hill" at Oz was full of neighborhood kids- ours included.  Althea and I stayed in the car and watched.  The girls are getting pretty good. I even saw some surf board type sledding from them.  Good times!  Afterwards we went to Avrie's favorite restaurant...Noodles and Co.  Here they are still in their snow clothes waiting for our food. 

And...What would we do if we didn't go see the Joffrey Nutcracker?  Three years in a row now we've taken the girls so that means it is definitely a tradition.  It never seems to get old and we all love it.  Also for the third year in a row we drove through the drive thru at Protillo's for dinner.  Then like every year we had to speed through town to try to get there before we were late.  And for the third year in a row we sat in our seats just as the lights dimmed and the show began.  We've got it down!  Maybe next year I'll get us an early dinner reservation somewhere nice and mix things up a bit! 

We decided the best dances are the Arabian Dancers and the Russian Dancers. Also the girls loved the little ginger bread boy.  We have a couple of different storybooks of the Nutcracker that we read every year.  The girls don't know this but I'm pretty sure that Santa will have 4 giant Nutcrackers for them this year on Christmas morning. I hope they'll love them.  

 On a side note....This year Adeline announced that she would like to take ballet lessons.  She just doesn't want to perform ever and she doesn't want anyone to be in her class.  Hmmm.  Will work on that but I am glad that she is interested in lessons because I think she could be good at it.  Actually I bet all three could be awesome.  Dance lessons are a good thing I think.

And finally, Kermit has been working on a new song/video for Christmas.  Good King Wenceslas.  My girls have the sweetest voices.  It melts me when I hear them sing.

Busy weekend I'd say.  More crazy but fun days ahead as we count down to Christmas.

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa!

How lucky we are that my parents were able to be with us last week!  We had a lot happen and I'm so glad they could be here for those special occasions.  They flew in on Friday and I picked them up from the airport in time to go straight to pick up the girls from school.  The girls loved having their grandparents pick them up from school.  That evening we received word that Uncle Kimmel had decided last minute to jump on a plane and was headed into town!  Kermit went and picked him up late that night. We had a full house!

The next day was the twins baptism day.  We spent the day getting ready.  It was a very special day.  That night we ate out at the twins favorite restaurant "Noodles and Company." The next day was also a special day because Althea received her baby blessing during sacrament meeting.   It was so great to have my parents and Kimmel there to support us on this special weekend.  Kimmel had to head back home on Sunday but my parents were able to stay through until after Thanksgiving.

The kids had school for a few days before Thanksgiving.  My mom was so helpful getting the girls through their homework and piano practice.  I wish she could be here all the time to help me every week like that!  We spent the week getting ready for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Again, what would I have done without my mom!  Her years of experience hosting Thanksgiving was so great to help pull this year off.  We shared her amazing meal with some friends from church (Rockwoods, Olsons, Kotelly).

We were able to go out to dinner a few times.  We went to the new restaurant in the neighborhood called Summerhouse.  That was fun because a friend from schools father is one of the main chefs there. He came out and talked with us and gave us a few appetizers for us to try that were amazing and different than anything I ever would have tried on my own.  We also went out and got a Christmas tree from Home Depot the night before they had to leave.   A memorable week to have them here.  I love them and  I hope they know how glad I was to have them here.