Family Photos

As part of their Christmas gift to Mom and Dad, Tim and Holly arranged for us to have professional photos taken while the entire family was together in New Hampshire for Christmas. It was especially fun to get pictures of my parents with their three grandsons: Josiah is 3 years, Micah is 6 months, and William is nearly 3 months.

Eyes and Ears

We miss you, Jesse! I meant to more carefully note Josiah's comments today in order to document his chatter, as I'm sure you're missing daily doses of his articulated foolishness. Sadly, all that comes to mind right now is a comment more funny than quaint, uttered over lunch: "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be a caterpillar feeder. I want to feed caterpillars." Of course, he's in the motherland of descriptive speech. "I feel like one of Nebuchudnezzar's henchmen" was uttered by my mom, mostly to herself, whilst stoking the fire yesterday.

William, for his part, continues to chat, coo, and sigh delightfully. He's such a sweetie! I'm including some photos of him, as he's been woefully underrepresented behind the lens this week; I imagine you're anxious to see more of him.

Busy Boy

Josiah certainly has enjoyed his grandmother's attention today...and observing it is just as much fun for me as a procession of our childhood toys are marched out from storage at intervals throughout each day!

I captured some of today's events on camera, but not pictured activities include Josiah and Nannan baking banana bread, choosing fabric from the stash for making a stuffed dinosaur tomorrow, playing with marbles and duplo blocks, and reading lots of books.

Making spinners and trains out of Tinker Toys.

Listening to stories and looking at the accompanying books with my old Fisher Price record player and Disneyland records. (What a blast from the past for me to hear several of those old stories again!)

Hearing the story of the first Christmas retold by Nannan with accompanying reenactment. The soft nativity set is one Mom whipped up out of scraps nearly 30 years ago. The stable is made of a Light Bright box I received as a Christmas gift as a little girl about Josiah's age!

Learning to play Snood on the computer. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. :)

The Snowman

Today Josiah constructed his first snowman. Well, really Nannan did the job, but Josiah sure enjoyed being a part! The rest of the week is supposed to be bitterly cold (single digits and teens Fahrenheit), so my mom very kindly and bravely took him out for some snowy fun.

Cousins!!

The boys and I have traveled to New Hampshire over a week early for Christmas. A few hours after we arrived on Sunday, Kara and Micah joined us and stayed for a day. We were excited to have all the cousins on this side of the family together for the first time!

Micah, at 6 months, has just started solid food. He definitely enjoys his spoon and the feel of oatmeal on his face. :)

Josiah and Papa were quick to introduce Micah to the wonderful world of trains!

Some of the Greats

Great-grandparents, that is. We were so delighted to have my paternal grandparents visit us this past week, and I think it's fair to say they were pleased to be here too. We celebrated a little, early mini-Christmas and had fun with the boys.

William proving that he's worthy of his name with Great-Papa, Bill.

Sharing smiles and coos with Great-Grandma.

William

We went to the pediatrician this week for Will's two-month check-up. They're a bit concerned about his excessive hair growth.

Sorry...couldn't resist. :) That was William being cuddled on Auntie Erin's shoulder last week over Thanksgiving! In any case, he's doing great. He feels like a little peanut compared to how ridiculously enormous Josiah was at this age, but he's already pretty big by most baby standards: 90th percentile for height (nearly 24 inches) and 95th percentile for weight (nearly 14 pounds). He's a ready smiler and loves to coo and chat with us these days. Super cute!

Here are some photos of him this past month.

5 weeks

6 weeks

8 weeks

almost 9 weeks

Fall Leaves

I know, I know. I've been terrible about posting for the past month. William has doubled in age (and practically doubled in size too!) since my last update. Over the next few days I'll try to get up some new pictures...

A few weeks ago we enjoyed a little raking and fun jumping in the leaves one sunny afternoon. Josiah enjoyed showing big leaves to Will. I took this photo of the two of them, and after I turned aside to put the camera away, Josiah announced to me with great happiness, "Mom! He licked it! I showed it to him and he licked it!"

Quotes

A few recent favorites uttered by my eldest:

While praying with Daddy before bed:

Josiah: "...and thank you for our tails..."

Daddy, a little later, after Josiah had finished: "Josiah, you know, we don't have tails."

Josiah: "Yeah, I know. We have buns. I was just teasing God."

Upon being told at night that if he got back out of bed he wouldn't get any treats (snacks) the next day:

Daddy: "No cookies...no Tic Tacs..."

Josiah, with great concern: "...and no licking the batter???"

While describing an imaginary character:

Mommy: "So, what's his name?"

Josiah: "Ummm....Herod. King Herod. But he's a good King Herod."

Mommy, somewhat surprised: "Oh, wow, okay. King Herod."

Josiah, over his shoulder while running off: "And he has a wife. Joseph."

He has a great neologism, too, for the seeminly ubiquitous bottles of anti-bacterial hand cleaner in every store, office, and home this flu season: Hanitizer. A simple shorthand, no? I think I'll be adopting that one myself...

Happy Halloween

On Thursday we went to Jesse's office to join the other HOPE kids in "Trick or Treating" around the cubicles. Josiah was excited to wear his Thomas the train outfit again from last year (which was big on him back then but fits great now), and we dug up a bandana and overalls so Will could be the train engineer!

Of course, the picture I really should have is from last night when Josiah went around the neighborhood for candy. Out of the blue he decided he absolutely did not want to wear his Thomas costume again; he wanted his kangaroo outfit instead. That's the costume he wore two years ago, when he was just barely a year old! But...he'd have it no other way, so we dug it out and squeezed him in. The sleeves came half way up his arms, the hood was so tight that he appeared to have no neck, and since it was short, the tail didn't hang down to come off of his bottom but instead stuck out of his back, looking more like a dorsal spike than a tail! It was pretty funny, but he was happy, and I guess that's what counts, right? :)

Thank You!!

For these first 3+ weeks of William's life, we've been overwhelmingly blessed to have one grandparent or another with us almost nonstop, providing attention for Josiah and help for me as I've tried to be really careful in following post-op instructions about not lifting, reaching, etc. I've realized my only photo of Tillie was from the hospital (already posted below), and here are a few pics of everyone else...

We love you so much, and we're so incredibly thankful for your help and energy and love and effort, driving hundreds of miles and playing endless crashes with Josiah and making meals and doing laundry and...the list could be endless.

Family of Four

Finally...

It's taken us the better part of a month, but at long last yesterday we got a photo of all of us together. Of course, Josiah was only interested in making crazy faces, so this is the best of at least eight shots, but hey, it's something. Will is already growing like a weed. He looks bigger than three weeks here to me, especially considering he was born over a week before his due date!

It's a tough life...

...when your cheeks need to be propped up by your collar!

(He's 3 weeks old today. Big boy!)

On how to be a good big brother:

We've had a few issues over the past two weeks, but overall Josiah has done a fantastic job adjusting to his role as Big Brother. William's arrival has coincided with the end of Josiah going to day care (for the next 15 months), with Mommy recovering from surgery and being unable to lift him and do several of her "normal" things, and with a rotating set of people in the house helping us out. Certainly we tried to be smart about how we prepared Josiah for these changes, and we're also trying to be intentional about giving him very special attention and one-on-one time...but...little is as it was just two weeks ago...so we're pretty proud with how he's coped, being all of 37 months old himself.

Josiah was ecstatic upon first meeting William. Two weeks later, he still daily comments, "It was a special day when my baby came out! I love my baby!"

I pumped a small amount of milk one day last week so that Josiah could help with a feed. Josiah was delighted at the honor of giving Will his very, very first bottle ever! And Will, being an incredibly accommodating infant, sucked the ounce down in 60 seconds flat, despite the dreadful awkwardness of delivery. :)

Josiah loves helping with various baby jobs. He assists with almost every diaper change (his primary task is to get a diaper and open it all out ready). He especially enjoys helping with Will's sponge baths, taking his job of washing down various assigned body parts very seriously!

He constantly asks to hold the baby. "May I cuddle with my brother?" "Can I kiss my brother?" "Can I see my brother?" are frequent refrains in the house.

Josiah also enjoys singing to the baby. Enjoy this video of him singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to Will. It was an encore performance once I'd located the camera, so it's not quite as sweet and heartfelt as the first time he sang it on that particular occasion, but you get the idea. :)

I know my boys will be normal boys who fight each other, tease one another, and all the rest. But for now, while it lasts, I'm enjoying watching them enjoy one another. I'm one lucky mommy.

On the road again...

Jesse is off to Boston until Sunday...for our 10th reunion at ENC and to receive an alumni award there this weekend, among other things. Nannan is here to help us as I'm still taking it easy and am not permitted yet to drive, being not quite 2 weeks out from surgery still. So that he doesn't forget what this new little guy looks like, we'll be posting pictures daily through the weekend—just as we always used to during Daddy's travels.

This afternoon Josiah and I frosted the rolled shortbread cookies we'd made on Tuesday, and Tim and Holly joined us for dinner, so it's been a pleasant day in the end, in spite of the cold, dark, rainy weather and the departure of our much-loved daddy!

Our little family

It's Sunday, William is 2 days old, I'm beginning to heal, and we're hoping to get hospital discharge papers tomorrow. We're delighted to share that Will is an absolute cherub of a baby! He's cuddly, sleepy, and content...he's equally amenable to lying in his little hospital bassinet when we need to rest as he is in someone's arms...he's nursing wonderfully (my milk's already in)...and he's just an all-around breeze so far — especially compared to Josiah, who came into the world crying and spent his first 10-12 months getting over it! (We've spent this entire pregnancy steeling ourselves with anxiety for a repeat year of exhaustion and difficulty, and we welcome the promise of these first, special 48 hours.)

That said, we're also delighted to share that Josiah is an absolute cherub of a big brother. He is utterly in love with "his baby," wants to hold William all the time, sings sweet songs to him, and is perfectly gentle. He's disappointed to be unable to help in the feeding department, though, and is planning rapidly to grow up to "be a Mommy and have nursie things to give Baby Will his milk."

Of course Jesse and I couldn't be happier with our little family. Hopefully by next report we'll all be home and settling into our new lives and roles.