Grace’s first Thanksgiving and our first Thanksgiving in our new home.

Another month passes by quickly and Grace is 3 months old!  She’s a good little sleeper, smiles a lot, and is such a joy.

Everyone missed the first time Grace rolled over.  I put her on her back to play in the living room while I took care of the laundry upstairs.  Michael came up and asked me if I had put Grace on her stomach or back to play.  I said, “She rolled over didn’t she?!?”  It was Christmas Eve day and she was 3 months 6 days old.

Here she tries to re-enact her first roll over from her back to her stomach.  On January 2nd, she rolled over from her stomach to her back.

And now I present Grace at 4 months old.  She’s 15 lbs 3 1/2 oz (75th percentile), 27 inches long (over 100th percentile), and 16.2 inch head circumference (50th percentile).  Because of her height, she started wearing 6-9 month clothes at 3 1/2 months.  It would have been sooner, but I just couldn’t bring myself to put her into such “big” clothes…

She doesn’t use her high chair for eating yet, but she likes to sit there while I work in the kitchen.

New this past month is finger chewing.  Belle got her first teeth at 4 months while the other 3 kids got their first teeth at 6 months, so I wonder when Grace will get her’s.

She’s still happy so I guess it’ll be awhile…  I hope!

Grace 9 days old.

11 days old.

2 weeks old 8 lbs 7 oz, 22 1/2 inches and 14 inch head circumference.

3 weeks old and Grace has her 1st bath.  Her cord fell off at a week old, but it took 2 more weeks for her belly button to be completely dry and healed.

(Bath photos courtesy of big brother, Adam.)

Grace didn’t seem to mind her sisters 3 sets of hands washing her.  She loves the water so bath time is enjoyed by all.

All clean…

And dry!

2 1/2 weeks

Grace is a smiley baby.  She’s been giving us her cute grins since the day she was born.  She started cooing along with her smiles at around 3 weeks old.

One month old.

October 20th, 2009

So, who do you think she’s looking like these days?

Grace was about 3 hours old when the kids finally had their turns holding her.

Emily holding her new sister.

Adam is at peace with having another sister.

Mary’s a BIG sister now

Belle and Grace.

Daddy’s littlest girl.

RED hair!  Quite the surprise, but the 3 great-grandma’s who were red-heads are thrilled.  We hope it stays too.

Good morning!  The girls greet Grace the morning after she was born.  They were happy to hear we had chosen a name for her.  Grace wasn’t a name we had discussed, but it seemed perfect for her.  Grace was the first word that popped into Michael’s head when he woke up the day after her birth.  He said, “How about Grace?”  I loved it immediately.  We had to figure out a middle name, but that was easier once we had her first name picked.

Oh, she’s such a sweet baby!  I wish you could all see her in person…

Check out her long legs and feet!

3 days old.

Belle is always holding, touching, kissing, baby Grace.  She asks to have her picture taken with her often.  She’s a super big sister!

Mary is doing great with her new big sister status.  Hopefully that continues!

Call me crazy, but I LOVE the newborn period.  The first 3 months are some of my favorite times with my babies.  I hope that time will not pass too quickly so I can soak up this special time with Grace.

24 hours before…

24 hours after!

Welcome baby Grace Catherine born at home, VBAC, waterbirth 9/18/09 11:54am, 7lbs 13oz, 22 1/2 inches long.  More pics and birth story to follow.

Here I am 38 weeks and 3 days with “Mystery Kid.”  I’ll be 39 weeks tomorrow.  WOW, where did the time go?  Overall I’m feeling well especially compared to the 1st trimester when I had to deal with morning, noon and night sickness and the 2nd trimester when I had to get the house packed, painted and ready to sale.  We moved the rest of the way across the US in the beginning part of the 3rd trimester and I was really thinking I’d never feel well during this pregnancy, but for the past 2 months I have felt GREAT!

Mary is looking forward to meeting the new baby and so is everyone else.

This is what I’ve been preoccupied with.  Well, getting to this place and everything that entailed.  It was an absolute exhausting process, but it’s over and we are getting settled in.

We live in a nice neighborhood with friendly neighbors and the kids have found friends to play with.  I pretty much know how to drive from the house to the interstate and back.  Michael has been doing all the running around and I’ve been good and haven’t over done it yet.

It was an adventure getting here too…

The day after this picture in the car Adam had a 24 hour bug.  Let’s say that driving with frequent, unpredictable, urgent potty breaks is not fun.  Add to it the diabetes factor and it gets even more “fun”!  I was on the phone managing his ketones and blood sugar with the endocrinologist office not knowing if/when I’d have a cell signal.  They were so helpful and took away some of the stress of traveling with a sick diabetic child.

Since he wasn’t able to keep food down, he wasn’t eating or drinking anything.  Water wouldn’t even stay down at first.  His blood sugar was getting borderline low and he had ketones.  You treat ketones by giving more insulin, but insulin makes your blood sugar go even lower.  So I was armed and ready with the glucagon and was trying to get him to drink sips of full sugar soda.  Too bad he was too sick to enjoy the treat, but it helped keep him from going too low and passing out and having a seizure.  Yeah, good times!  We were grateful that his illness passed quickly and that he didn’t have any complications that required us going to the hospital.

Emily (and Yeti) traveled well.  Emily likes the new house and her room.  She doesn’t want to share a room any more because Belle keeps her awake “ALL night” asking her questions.  I just remind her that she did the same thing to Adam when they shared a room together.  She smiles and says, “Oh, ya…”

Belle is getting so much more grown up these days.  Along with that she’s a bit more grumpy when things don’t go her way.  She’s had a few digestion issues too.  The week before we left and then again this week.  The girl doesn’t weigh enough to have this many digestion problems.  Luckily the one this week was a 24 hour bug.  The one the week before we left lasted over a week.

The new carpet has been initiated in SO many ways in the almost 3 weeks that we’ve been living here.

Speaking of carpets, Mary has decided that she’s done with diapers and wants to use the potty.  Some days are great and other days include LOTS of carpet cleaner   She’s a talker and a big helper these days.  She likes to talk to the baby in mommy’s tummy and gives baby kisses albeit a bit roughly.

And Mr. Sandman made it as well.  He meowed nearly the whole time apart from when he was sleeping.  He’s glad to be out of his crate and free to hide under the bed.

And this is what I did for (what felt like) most of the drive and for the first few days before the house closed – talked on the cell phone.  When the house closed and we moved in, I had phone withdrawals.  I felt like I should be calling someone or someone should be calling me.   I didn’t miss it really, it was just strange and nice to not have the phone attached to my ear.

Another quick story is about a place we stayed at before the pets were boarded and we moved to a nicer hotel.  We stayed in a Motel 6.  It was a rather run down one, but it was clean (mostly).  Some old friends from Iowa who moved here a couple of years before had us over for dinner.  They asked where we had been staying.  When we told them, Motel 6, they replied, “Oh, the one where the meth lab exploded?”  What?!?!  I’m glad that we were there only one night if that was the place

And this amazing man has been unpacking, putting beds and other things together.  He installed ceiling fans (4 so far), installed a new exhaust fan/light combo in the bathroom (there was already an exhaust fan, but more light was needed over by the shower) and today he is working on running HDMI cables and other wires through the wall.  I’m a bit overwhelmed by that since he’s cutting holes in the wall, but he’s having fun, so I’m not thinking about the process, just the final product which will be nice.  He also has to prepare lectures and such for the classes he will be teaching starting September.  He leaves early in the morning and then is back to do more around the house.  There’s more, but the list I’ve just created has tired me.

It had been in the oven about 10 minutes when a really horrible sound started coming from inside of the oven.  I opened up the door to find that a portion of the element was sparking and on fire.  So I turned off the oven until it stopped.  I tried to turn it back on, but of course, the element was dead and the cake still had 20 more minutes the bake.  I left it in the warm oven to see if it had enough heat to finish baking.  Uh… no.

So I decided to put it into my crockpot.  Luckily the 8 inch springform pan fit perfectly!  I turned it on high and crossed my fingers.  Now, 3 hours later, the cake appears finished and smells delightful   We’ll have the taste test tonight.

Dear wonderful husband, thanks for getting a power washer so I can clean off 6 years of dirt off the rest of the house.  Sorry for my tears and tantrum.

Her owl pellet had little teeth and bones which she then glued to her owl puppet bag.  She was quite proud.  She said one owl pellet had a whole mouse sized skull!