Dress-up central

The girls (especially Cora) LOVE dress-up clothes, so I made some dresses for Christmas. It took forever and I learned a lot of lessons (like use a simpler pattern!!)

Christmas cont...

A great time at home for the Eve with Erin and Ed, then off to family in Huntsville. The girls and boy had a great time with their cousins. Highlights:
-Stuart taught Isabelle how to draw a cute dog
-Soren wowed everyone with his brilliant fine motor skills (those half-circle stacking things with the jingly ball. He was never bored)
-Cora had a great dress-up moment with Stuart and Isabelle and Grandma’s box of scarves.
NOT highlights (lowlights, then?):
-Isabelle gagged on her antibiotics every day as she is getting over an ear infection
-Cora got sick and lucky-her, gets her own antibiotics, on which she didn’t gag, but being sick made her feel pretty miserable
-Soren had a huge zit-looking infection on his chin, which Daddy eventually popped and Mommy slathered with neosporin






Nice, right?






SO fun to be with family. I love having Erin so close and watching her enjoy her relationship with such a great guy. All is well, yeah we prospereth, if but for a moment.

Christmas!

Christmas Eve -
This is Brad telling the Christmas story to the girls. Soren is the baby Jesus, wrapped in some nice swaddling chenille. He was very sweet and obliging through the whole thing. This picture the ONLY one I took of Erin and Ed together. Too bad we don't get to see their heads :-)

And it's a very nice shot of Isabelle using her shirt as a hanky...!

I know I'm not the first or last mother to say this, but I am completely smitten with my children. These are some latest pics. The one day so far that it snowed here in Houston. And Soren and Cora in a tent. They played in that thing all day and had a messy good time.

Napper

So, Soren has become the supernapper. It is currently 6:30pm and he has been asleep for an hour and a half. This is his second nap today and the first one this morning was over 3 hours! And tonight he'll probably go to sleep around 9 and wake up at 8am. A growth spurt perchance? How could this mammoth little boy get any bigger and still be the baby he's suppose to be? Well, he's almost one and I am already grieving the passing of the baby days and relenting to the inevitable days of destruction in the toddler phase. He already manages to find lots of crooks and crannies to rummage through in the house. I love his little concentrating face when he's trying to figure out a toy or a remote or fit a little thing into a bigger container. He LOVES his sisters and they sure love him to total pieces.

Attempt #2

I'm trying this again, as I have allowed myself to be influenced by several other enthusiastic bloggers. So let's just start with right now. Soren is playing with blocks and I just put Isabelle and Cora to bed. I can hear their music and the occasional sad cough from Cora. It seems that we have run the gamut of illnesses since moving to Texas. As we love it here, it is not a subconscious transference of anyone's feelings about the move or anything of a suspicious psychological nature. In our happiness we have yet suffered! Everyone has had a cold at least once (we're not yet at 4 months since moving here), Isabelle has had pneumonia and strep throat. Soren has had roseola and Brad has had pneumonia and is currently fighting some kind of sinus infection. Cora now is experiencing a terrible cough. SO, help me Rhonda, help help me....!