5-4-3-2-1: Happy 8:30!!!

This year, for the first time, we decided to stay home for New Year's Eve. I prefer going out, but it was fun to be at home too. We wanted to do something fun with the kids, but obviously there is no way they are making it to midnight without becoming total nightmares. So we decided to celebrate with them at 8:30. I saw an idea with bags on Pinterest so we did that. There was activity in each bag. (Jason made fun of my not-very-accurate clocks. Whatever. In elementary school I remember thinking telling time was a complete waste of my time given all the digital clocks around)

We ate fondue and had a dinner of various appetizers.
We played with glowing jewelry
We also watched a Veggie Tales movie starring Minnesota Cuke, played a game, and ate dessert. But soon it was 8:30 and, after practicing with Joshua how to count backwards from 5, we rang in the "new year"

After we put the kids to bed, Jason and I celebrated again at midnight. This has been an amazing year and we can't wait to see what 2013 has in store.

New and Improved Tummy Time

Hannah is making big progress with her motor skills lately. Not only does she smile and laugh more and lift her head up more often, but she also bats at things and is more interested in the world around her. This means tummy time is going much better than it was and she seems to actually enjoy it for at least a little while. It is exciting to see her develop new skills and become more like a tiny person with likes and dislikes.

Merry Christmas!

Today we had a very nice Christmas. We woke up, read the Christmas story, and then did presents. Joshua was a little excited this year, but not too much. Terrence still was the most excited one in the house. Joshua did really like taking off the wrapping paper though and he was not really worried about only unwrapping the ones that were his. Jason and I had fun giving the kids the gifts we made, as well as the ones we bought. This is Hannah in her carseat poncho and Joshua with the helping tower. Later, we had our traditional dinner of sauerbraten. We really enjoyed spending the day with the kids and each other.

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve. Our normal tradition involves Jason shopping until dinner time, but this year he was ahead of the game and finished shopping yesterday. But he had to work so we didn't really gain too much, though I guess he had the satisfaction of feeling ready for Christmas a day early. Regardless, we had our traditional dinner of shrimp bisque and rolls (lots and lots of rolls for the under-three set). This year Peg and Ron joined us for dinner and they, as well as Julie and Andrew, went to the candlelight Christmas Eve service with us. We have always gone to the 11pm service, but this year we just didn't think Clara could deal with it so we went to the 7pm service and used childcare for both Clara and Joshua. Though I love having communion in the service and also leaving church and having it be Christmas morning, the earlier service was still very nice and we enjoyed it. Unfortunately I was losing my voice so I couldn't sing any carols, but I know Jason really enjoyed singing and it was nice to hear them even if I couldn't participate. Here is our family after the service. Clara really enjoyed the large atrium of the church and was just delighted with her ability to run free (not too free, but I think it seemed free to her). Hannah stayed with us for the service and she slept through the entire thing, but we did give her a candle so she could participate too.

Tripping the Lights Fantastic

It may not be the most original idea we've ever had, but last year we decided that a family tradition of ours will be to drive around and look at Christmas lights on a night near Christmas.  This year's event took place tonight.  We decided to put the kids in their jammies so it would be easy to go to bed when we got home.  We drove through Christmas Card Lane and other random neighborhoods.  Hannah was either silent or asleep, and Clara didn't seem all that interested, but Joshua would repeatedly alert us by saying "Lights" and then when we drove through a Scroogy street, he'd say "More!"

I've seen some elaborate lighting displays on houses in my day, but usually they involve every single edge of the house lined with lights and lots of lighted yard ornaments.  But tonight we saw a house that was over the top, but in a different way than you normally see.  It's in the background of the picture above, but I had to take a separate picture to fully capture its, uh, grandeur.  Here it is:

 

I admire this family, because they only had so much surface area to work with, and they maximized it like no one has before, covering every single square foot of the front wall of their house with lights, including even covering their entire master bedroom window!  And then as a bonus, they covered much of their yard as well.  That's some serious dedication.

Christmas Movie Night

One of the activities on the advent calendar was to watch a Christmas movie.  We chose the same movie we watched last year: Veggie Tales: The Little Drummer Boy.  Joshua was quite interested in it and could barely turn away from it long enough for this picture.  Clara was somewhat interested in it, but it didn't really keep her attention.  Hannah might have an extreme interest in computer-animated vegetables, or she might not.  It's a little too early to tell.

How We Roll

Now that I have three kids under three, I have a triple stroller. I feel like if you have an almost-three-year-old, you can make do with a double because the only time you truly need a third seat in that case are big things like the zoo or something where you are likely to have another adult. But with a younger two-year-old, you really need the triple if you go out on a regular basis. If I let Joshua walk, which I do sometimes, it takes us at least 30-45 min to go around the block because he's so interested in everything. I love that, and I try not to rush him because I want to encourage his love of nature, but sometimes I actually want to burn a couple of calories, so a triple stroller is necessary for those times. I love this stroller, though it is not exactly compact. It steers like a dream and is perfect for either "Irish triplets" or twins and a toddler. It is super expensive new but I found it on Craigslist for half-price, which was very exciting. However, I bought it before my 20 week ultrasound and it is pink, so I was glad when Hannah was a girl since I was going to use it either way. I try to go outside with the kids every single day unless we have an appointment or it's raining, or frigidly cold. Sometimes we play in the backyard, sometimes Joshua walks and I carry Hannah and Clara rides the bike (which she loves), but we most often take the triple stroller out and everyone seems to enjoy it.

Christmas Weekend Part 2: Nicholl Edition

Yesterday we had Christmas with my siblings and my dad and their significant others.  Today we went to Mom and Ron's house to have Christmas with Mom's side and Ron's side.  Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Brent drove in from their respective homes, and Matt and Abby and David were there, and again the same crew from yesterday minus Dad and Deb.  Ron works with a guy who is a photographer, Nick, and hired him to stop by and take some pictures, so we got some great pictures of the various family groups in attendance.

Later some of us played Oxford Dilemma, a board game that mixes Scrabble with Monopoly with a spelling bee.  It's one of my favorite games even though I'd only played it twice and not in the past five or six years.  We learned the spelling of everything from obscure French philosophers to Chinese rivers. 

There was the normal extensive supply of shrimp cocktail, which we made short work of, and a double batch of Grandma's Christmas cookies, thanks to Guest Chef Brent Hall, which allowed me to indulge early and often.  I don't think I ate more than a dozen, but it's possible I did.

It was a fun day, as it always is, and we're thankful we have some great photographs from it.  (By the way, the picture above of everyone around the tree was one I took, so please don't blame Nick for my mediocre photography.)

Christmas Weekend Part 1: Leach Edition

This weekend is a busy weekend, as we have our Christmas with both sides of my family.  Today Dad and Deb are in town, and tomorrow is Christmas at Mom and Ron's house.  We had two different sets of Christmas outfits for the kids, one for each day.  For today Joshua wore a cute little airplane sweater vest, and Clara and Hannah wore matching Santa dresses with striped leggings.  We actually managed to get a decent picture of the three of them, although Clara is attempting to eat an ornament, and Hannah's dress is pulled up a little bit, but all in all, it's about as good as we can expect.

In the early afternoon, Dad, Deb, Julie, Andrew, Joanna, and Kirk all arrived at our house.  We had some tasty appetizers and then played Wavelength, in which Julie and Andrew had a comeback win, much to the chagrin of the hosts.  We would have won, but when I think of prisons, I think of Alcatraz, but Meghan thinks I think of Lansing and/or Leavenworth.  We weren't on the same "wavelength" on that one, and thus Andrew and Julie's Kate Middleton (Duchess of Whatever) answer won the game for them.

Later we had pizza for dinner, but our strategy of cooking two Papa Murphy's pizzas at once by alternating which one was on top in the oven failed, as both burned on the bottom.  Next time we'll cook them sequentially instead of in parallel.  They also failed to put pineapple on our Hawaiian and green pepper pizza, so they gave us a replacement for free, which we happily accepted since it meant we would have a non-burned pizza.  For dessert we had baklava, which Dad had the good idea to get.

Later we gave Deb a gift, but it was more of a joke gift.  Dad historically has wanted nothing but underwear for Christmas, so as a joking jab at him, we gave her some bright pink underwear, since that's all our father has taught us to give as gifts.  But we then gave her (and Dad) an actual gift, which was a framed photo of all of us in the big colorful glasses that was taken when she and Dad announced they had gotten married.  This represented all of us as a family and our excitement of having her as part of our family.

Finally, since that picture didn't have Clara in it, and because Hannah was still in the womb, we took a new picture that has all of us in it.  No silly glasses this time, but it's a nice family picture that is the first one that has all of us including all of our kids.

Gingerbread Fun

Tonight our advent activity was to decorate a gingerbread house (well we actually did a train since Joshua loves trains). This was a fun activity that involved both the eating of delicious things and art, so you can't really go wrong with that combination.

Hannah was definitely too young to participate, so she offered moral support from her high chair.

Clara wasn't that into decorating this year. I think she will enjoy it more next year. But she greatly enjoyed eating the gingerbread and candy. In fact, we didn't even decorate the boxcar because her main activity during decorating time was disassembling that, eating some of the gingerbread, and feeding the rest to the dogs. It was a very festive night for the pugs too. They got a lot of treats.

Joshua definitely was the most involved. He enjoyed sticking the candy on the frosting to make the train pretty, but not as much as he enjoyed eating the candy and gingerbread. It was a really fun night for all of us.I was a little hesitant to do this activity with the kids because it seemed like the potential for chaos was high, but I am very glad I took the chance. I did pre-assemble the train during their nap so they didn't have to wait while I did that before decorating and it also made the train a bit sturdier since the icing had time to set up before we decorated, but it went very well. 

It reminded me of the last time we did a gingerbread house which was the Christmas of 2001(!) when we had large blocks of free time, creativity that allowed us to say, "Why not make a gingerbread house from scratch" and youthful naivete that deluded us into thinking, "Yeah we can probably make that in a couple hours". You know it was a long time ago because I did scrapbooks by hand with the photos I took on actual film.

LBC Christmas

We are in the process of finding a new church.  One of the ones we're considering is a church that Nate and Carla attend.  Today their church is having their Christmas program, and we were originally going to go with Nate and Carla, but they had something else come up.  Childcare was provided, which was convenient, though we kept Hannah with us.  The program was nice, though we would've liked to have heard more traditional familiar Christmas songs.  One weird thing was the incorporation of some odd humor by the conductor, including some awkward family Christmas photos and some video clips.  They even had a free "dessert buffet", including Sheridan's Custard, but we decided Joshua didn't need to have ice cream so close to bedtime, though he disagreed.  But overall it was an enjoyable time, and we'll likely try to go back next year.                                                                                                                                                 

Happy Birthday, Bon Voyage

Today Christine came over. She is moving to Vegas tomorrow so she brought over a couple old toys she had for the kids. One of them is the very beloved Monk, seen here with Joshua. We also went out to dinner to celebrate her birthday tomorrow, which was nice too. We are glad she is able to live with Eric, but we will miss having her around.

2 Months Old

Yesterday, Hannah turned two months old, but we didn't have time to take her photo so we took it today. She is definitely growing bigger all the time and now weighs just over ten pounds. She is in the 80th percentile for height, but only the 36th for weight so right now she is tall and thin. She is holding her head up a lot more and occasionally even gets her chest off the ground. She gave us her first intentional smile a couple days ago. She doesn't yet have a lot of interest in reaching or grabbing. She remains a very mellow baby except when her reflux is bothering her.

"Sleigh" Ride

Our neighborhood homes association announced this year they were sponsoring a free sleigh ride for the residents.  I wasn't sure what exactly a sleigh ride would entail, but we decided it would be worth trying.  Well, we weren't exactly dashing through the snow, but I suppose that was reasonable since the temperature was in the 50s.  Their formula for a sleigh ride: Take a hay ride, do it in December, and play some Christmas music from a small portable CD player.  Well, close enough.  It was really just a hay ride, but it was still fun.  We all piled on the trailer (there were multiple shifts to accommodate all the people), and it rode through the neighborhood while we looked at the lights on the houses and listened to the music.  Joshua loved it because of the hay and thought that was by far the best part.  It was a fun little family event, and we'll likely do it again next year if they offer it again. 

Doctor Appointment for the Girls

Today I took both girls to the doctor while Joshua stayed with Grandma. Hannah had a weight check. She is doing really well and weighs almost ten pounds. Clara had her one year check. She is also doing well, though still very small. She weighs about 15.25 pounds. I would have liked to get a picture of Clara with Jeanette, who we have seen consistently since her birth. Clara has probably seen Jeanette as a patient at least six times, plus more for when I have brought her for Joshua's appointments. However, this did not stop her from freaking out and refusing to have anything to do with her, so no picture. She did really like Heidi, our favorite nurse, so at least that's something. Heidi decided to hold on to her favored status by having another nurse give Clara her vaccinations, which she was not a huge fan of. Overall I would say Clara is probably glad she doesn't have to go back for three months.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving. I love pretty much everything about this holiday. I love the inclusiveness of it. I love the traditions. I love that it is uniquely American in many ways, but that many other countries have similar holidays. I love the food. This year we are lucky to be able to have it in our home again, which is my favorite way to celebrate it. It is a lot of work to cook all that food, but I really enjoy it and I love hosting. We are glad that Michelle and Sam could be with us this year. It has been really great to celebrate with them and spend some time together. We are also so thankful for what God has done in our lives, especially this past year. It is hard to believe that it was only last Thanksgiving that we only had one kid. It was the night of Thanksgiving that we got the call from the adoption agency about Clara since she was born last year on Thanksgiving morning. We feel so blessed to have had such an amazing year.

Extended Family Day

As with most Wednesdays, the kids went over to Mom and Ron's house today.  But unlike most Wednesdays, because it's Thanksgiving week, my grandparents and Uncle Brent were in town, so the kids had a chance to spend time with some of our family who they don't normally get to see.  Here Uncle Brent holds Hannah, reminiscent of the time he first held Joshua, when he was the first one in our family to hold him.

Meeting GG and PaPa

Today the Halls came into two for Clara's birthday party. Ron and Peg were nice enough to watch the kids for the day since we were doing party prep so Hannah got to meet her great-grandparents today. We all had dinner together when we went to pick up the kids which was very nice..

A Big Helper

Recently Joshua has become a really big helper. Mostly this is so sweet because he wants to help with things and so he wipes Clara's nose or fixes her hair or wants to feed Hannah. Here he is helping Jason do that. It can give me panic attacks at times as he also tries to pick Hannah up out of her pack 'n play and he tends to tip Clara out of her car when he pushes her around so sometimes he struggles a little with execution since he is just a little guy, but I love seeing him want to help. Terrence, on the other hand, needs no help repeatedly tasting his delicious foot.

Tummy Time

The pediatrician recommends starting tummy time from the very day you bring your baby home, but I don't find that realistic because a baby that young sleeps so much. But Hannah has been having more awake time lately so we decided now is a good time to start tummy time, especially because I feel like she doesn't yet have good head control. So far, like most of life, she seems to be unimpressed with it, yet doesn't have much of a problem with it either. Here she is being her typical mellow self on her tummy.