Our Snow Angel

Jon "won" these butterfly wings at a white elephant gift exchange at the Christmas party for the teachers at his school.  Actually, he may have traded to get them knowing that Hannah would love them.  She did in fact love them....so much that she wanted to wear them outside with her snowsuit.  So, we let her.

Enjoy the super-cute pictures!

 

 

 

We had a blast out in the snow.  Hannah and I even shoveled the driveway together with her wearing her wings.  I know a number of the neighbors slowed down to get a look at her with the giant shovel and her wings.  She's just too cute!

2 Months Old

Our Lauren is already two months old.  Where does time go????

Our little miss is just growing like a weed.  Just like her sister, she doesn't like pacifiers, but she loves to suck.  She is trying to get her fist to her mouth but doesn't always have the coordination. 

We haven't been able to weigh her on the baby scale, since I sent my sister's home with her after she was here, but I have no doubt that she is gaining weight.  She eats every 3 hours, but sometimes will go 4 hours at night.  On the rare "miracle nights" she will go 5 hours.  Lauren is starting to smile and coo, and I just can't wait for her to get more expressive. 

Right now she just sleeps a lot, which is fine because I know she is growing.  Her favorite position to sleep is on her tummy, laying on top of someone else's tummy.  This leads to me not getting much done at all during the day, as she'll snuggle in for a nap and if you attempt to put her down she wakes back up.  At first it frustrated me greatly because I wanted to do stuff, but I've learned (am learning is maybe the proper tense there) to just embrace it and enjoy this time while she is little and a snuggle-bug.

Happy New Year!

Jon and I had a great New Year's Eve....the first time we've gone out or done anything in ages.  We went out to dinner with our friends, the Lichtensteigers.  We've celebrated New Year's with them before....one year we went out with a giant group of friends and gave up our reservations at one place because a guy wanted to impress a girl.  We waited at a place to be seated for dinner until after 11pm!!!!  It was midnight or so by the time we were served....Not the best evening.  In 2007/2008, we all spent the evening in my hospital room together, drinking Sparkling French Lemonade and eating Toblerone candy while playing cards.  This year was a little different.  For starters, we have 4 kids now.

This year, we hired two babysitters to come to our house and we got reservations (albeit at 5pm), for a fancy restaurant downtown.  We all got dressed up and went with some gift cards (even better!).  We had a lovely evening -- from the time we left the house at 4:30pm until we got home around 7:30 or 8pm, we didn't talk about the kids - AT ALL!!!  How lovely to have an adult evening and just talk about random topics like we used to.

Some highlights of the meal:
* When Curtis received his dinner special main course, he asked us if it would be rude to ask the waiter where the rest of his food was..... Apparently a petite filet, oscar-style is not enough food for him.
* Curtis had Sheri order the 10oz filet so he could eat what she didn't finish.
* We all ordered water to drink, much to the disappointment of our server.  The drinks sounded delicious, but it is hard to justify a $14 glass of champagne with berries or a $10 glass of wine, when we could buy a bottle of either for the same price.
* Curtis quizzed the waiter on what gnocchi was....and asked more questions about the menu than I thought possible.
* We all ate some delicious steak and split a few desserts.


Of course, once we got home and rescued our sitters (who now don't ever plan on having 4 kids), we were all tired.  Jon was the only one awake to ring in the new year.  I went to bed at 9:30.  But, it was so nice to dress up and get out of the house.  We really have to remember to do it more often!!  I once read in a Parents Magazine that parents should leave their kids for 3-4 hours a week for time away.  The early weeks with a new baby certainly make it hard to do this, but now that Lauren is a little older, it's definitely getting easier to leave her.  (Of course, it would be easier if she were a little better about taking a bottle...)


Hope everyone has a great 2011!

Bye, Bye Cassidy's

We hated to see the Cassidy's leave after their short visit.  In fact, Hannah was so upset to see Liam leave on the airplane that she kept telling Aunt Karen that she was going with them on the airplane.... I even offered to buy her a (one-way) ticket : )  I was so happy that Hannah and Liam played together so well -- especially since they hadn't seen each other since August.  And, although our house was a little crowded, it wasn't that bad with the 8 of us for just a few days.  Maybe the next time they come we will have finished our basement and we can throw the kids down there together!

Karen and I talked about trying to come up with a visit schedule so we can visit each other at least once a year.  It's just so hard to travel that far with little kids.  However, I'm looking forward to when the girls are older and we can take them to see the sights in DC with their cousins.  I think Hannah will enjoy all of the different things at the various Smithsonian Museums .... "why", "what's that, mom," "why did they do that"...... she'll have tons of questions!

Hannah and Aunt Karen goofing around

 All smiles

 Aunt Karen with Niece #4, Lauren

(Brian's brother also has 2 little girls!)

 Uncle Brian with Lauren

The Woolley Girls

Story Time with Brian

Uncle Brian read stories to Hannah and Liam before bedtime.  They loved the stories!  Uncle Brian is such a great dad and uncle!!!