Grandma Delsa

My mom has been visiting and it has been a dream. I'm not sure how I ever recovered from having Aviva without her.

One of my favorite things is how Aviva wants to cook with us when we're working in the kitchen. Of course all the laundry, child care and dinner making come in a close second...

And More Leo

There's not much to tell about Leo. He's doing all the normal 1 week old baby things. But he sure is cute to look at:

More Leo

We've had lots of requests for more pictures of Leo. Since he is up all night and sleeps all day, these will have to do.

Yes, that's a pink binky. We're still crossing back over from the last baby, give us a break.

There have also been some inquiries about Aviva's reaction. She adores Leo and the only sign of future jealousy is that she keeps getting into Leo's clothes and saying "Mine!" This is her in his 3-6 month shorts and coat and then in his winter hat:

Leo Tyler meets Max and Aviva

Leo didn't express much when he met Max and Aviva. But Max and Aviva sure showed Leo lots of love. Mommy and Aviva were in the car when Aviva and Max first met Leo and they couldn't stop doing the following (guess who did what):

• Touching Leo to get him to make a sound.
• Saying, "Where Leo?" and smiling.
• Begging to hold Leo.
• Saying "We're a family now." (This one really made Kristin and Abram smile, except on further reflection, it makes you wonder why we weren't a family before ... .)

When we got home, Max and Aviva washed up and then fought to hold Leo. We compromised by cutting Leo in half ... I mean letting Aviva hold half of Leo and Max hold the other half.

Here is a picture of Leo with Max and Aviva and then some more pictures of Leo from the hospital right after joining the fam'.

Leo Tyler

And he made it. I went into labor Wednesday night at around 11:30 pm after about an hour of sleep. I spent the next 3 hours packing, cleaning, doing laundry, and playing Scrabble on my iphone. I called the doctor at 2:15 when my contractions got to be 6 minutes apart. They left a message for her, but I had to call back an hour later because she never called. I was freaking out a little because I was terrified that the third one would come faster than expected and I'd end up not being able to get an epidural.

She told me to come in. By the time we got to the hospital I was 4 minutes apart, dilated 4 cm. They gave me the epidural and I kept waiting for it to fully kick in, but my contractions just kept getting worse. I'm not going to lie, there were some tears shed and once again I questioned how anyone is ever able to do this naturally.

Anyway, they checked me and I was already dilated to a 9. Apparently, right after they gave me the epidural, my contractions doubled in intensity and I started progressing like crazy, but they had only given me enough medicine in the epidural for someone who was dilated to a 4. So the anesthesiologist ran out of a C-Section shot me up with some more medication and ran back in. I just kept thinking, thank goodness I didn't wait another hour at home.

I had about a half hour to relax and then I pushed three times and out came Leo at 7:22 am, Thanksgiving morning. It's always such an amazing, happy moment. He is 8 pounds, 1 ounce and 20 inches long. When he came out they realized he had tied a knot in his umbilical cord, which didn't surprise me at all after all that dancing around in my belly. Luckily, it never got pulled tight, so it never affected his heart rate or anything.

He is super pink (he had a 9 on his apgar test) with a beautiful round head and he's already a little chubby with a little round belly. He's bald, just like Max and Aviva. He came out screaming and for the first hour I thought, "we're going to have our hands full with this one." But since then I can hardly get him to wake up to eat.

I already love him so much, and I can't wait for his brother and sister to meet him. I can't believe we're already a family of FIVE. Here's to good (and crazy) times ahead!

Max's Primary Talk

I Will Prepare now to Become a Father

I am preparing to become a father.

My dad takes care of us by making breakfast. I crack the eggs all by myself so one day I can make breakfast.

My dad plays with us, so I am practicing my wrestling moves.

Most of all, my dad loves us. I am learning to love by being nice to people.

I know Heavenly Father wants me to prepare to become a father and I am happy to do it.

2 Days and Counting

I am scheduled to be induced on Friday! My list of things to do before the baby comes is almost done. One of those things was decorating for Christmas. Max and Aviva LOVE the ornaments. They play with them all the time and consequently, we have about half as many as we started with.

In other news, Aviva decided to potty train herself a couple weeks ago. She still has accidents here and there, but I would definitely consider her potty trained. It's a Thanksgiving Miracle. There is an awesome picture I wanted to post of her doing the dishes with just her panties on backward with a sweet half wedgie, but I figured it might not be appropriate for the internet.

Max and Aviva have become good friends lately. Well, maybe not good friends, but friends nonetheless, and it is awesome. I love watching them play together and how she follows her brother around and wants him to help her get out of her car seat, fix toys, and all the other things she used to have me help her with. I also secretly love how she teases him, then he retaliates, she cries or screams and then goes back for more. It's like I'm watching myself 29 years ago. Or one year ago, but who's counting?

Halloween

Thanks to my very talented friend Larissa (check out her Etsy Shop here), Max got to be King of the Wild Things this year for Halloween. He loves the book and points out his name in print every time we see it while we read.

Aviva and I had been goign through a little bit of a rough period so I passive aggressively decided she would be a witch for Halloween.

She of course tried to foil my plans by finding an old dress up outfit of Max's that Keith and Jeanene brought us from China and spent half of the day in it.

Our First Visitors

We moved in September and we've been settling in nicely. We love it here, but we really miss our friends and family in Michigan. So you can imagine how excited I was when Elizabeth piled her three kids in the minivan and came to visit us in October. We had so much fun. Here are some photos of the good times:

Collin and Max at the Natural History Museum

Aviva and Ashlyn at the Zoo. They were so cute holding hands everywhere they went

Gravelly Point is a park right next to the airport where you can watch the planes take off and land. The kids LOVED it.

Scooby Doo Party

Max wanted a Scooby Doo birthday party this year, and we had a lot of fun putting it together. Not nearly as much fun as actually participating though. The highlights were when the kids threw Jello and whipped cream at Scooby's (Abram's) mouth, and when the werewolf (Uncle Garrett) stole the presents and the kids found him, got scared out of their minds, chased him down and unmasked him.

Here are some photos:

Max wanted to dress up like Shaggy for the party

He had a surprise visit from Velma (Joanna)

Unfortunately, my art and design skills haven't really improved since about 7th grade. See both decorations above and cake below.

It's supposed to be a bone.

It took the kids awhile to get the hang of this. Jana couldn't stand it, so she cut in line and got a few good throws in first to show them how it's done.

I wish I had a better angle so you could see the kids faces when Garrett jumped out at them. It was priceless. It's three months later and Aviva is still saying, "Uncle Garrett, Raaaarrrgh!"

One of the things I miss most about Collin is hearing him call Garrett and Shauri "Uncle Garrett" and "Aunt Shauri."

I'm Pregnant

You may have noticed that I stopped blogging around March.  That's because I'm pregnant.  And once I'm pregnant I like to milk it for all it's worth.  Abram finally shamed me into posting, now that I'm 5 1/2 months along. 

I'm due November 28th and it's a boy.  We're taking name suggestions, so feel free to leave one.

We're Moving

Again.  For those that haven't heard, we're moving back to DC.  Same job, same area, same everything.  We just found a place to rent that we're really excited about.  It's right next to GW parkway, so I've been trying to convince Abram he should bike into work everyday.  I thought it was going pretty well until he had dinner with Ryan and Amy, mentioned it to them, and Amy just laughed.  That was enough of a reality check for him and now we're banking on the express bus.   

Abram is driving the truck down on Sept. 12 and my mom is going to drive down with the kids and me on Sept. 14.  

Here are photos of some of our friends that we love and are so very sad to leave.

New York

Thanks to my mom and Abram, I got to go on a kid-free girls trip to New York.  Here are some of the highlights:

Grimaldi's Pizza

Breakfast at Norma's

In the Heights 

Central Park

Our Rickshaw ride with Angel

(me half heartedly encouraging a little girl after Jana embarrassed her for falling off her bike)

I don't have any pictures, but I will also fondly remember our many inappropriate conversations on airplanes and subways for all the world to hear. 

It was a great trip and I'm so glad I got to go with my girls before I leave.  

OBX

We went to our favorite vacation spot in July: The Outer Banks of North Carolina.  My family rents a huge beachside house that can fit all 20 of us (Travis is engaged for those of you counting).  We swim and play and eat and laugh for a whole week together.  That's not to say we don't have rough moments.  You can click here to read Shauri's account of our trip there.  

Here is the only picture I have of the trip.  Not very exciting, is it?  Hopefully this will push my sister/sisters-in-law to send me all their photos.

a few more...