Christmas

Merry Christmas!!  We had a very quiet (as quiet as possible with 5 kids in the house) Christmas Eve this year… we watched some Christmas movies, played some games, went to 4:00 Mass (a feat in itself) and tried to get ready for Santa.

Just thought we could all use a picture of Peter in his precious Christmas outfit.

“OOoooo, Christmas lights”

Cookies left out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  Look closely.  Yes, those are turkey cookies.  Yes, place and bake, preformed cookie dough with a Thanksgiving theme.  Yes, Pillsbury.  Don’t judge.  I had the best intentions of making Christmas cookies.  Even before the baby was born, I was on a quest to find dairy-free margarine (in Kansas City and Milwaukee, it’s all over the place at regular grocery stores, but not here, apparently)  Since that quest was a bust, I decided to just give up and buy a roll of sugar cookie dough.  We could roll it out on Christmas eve and cut out and decorate the cookies.  Well, that idea went by the wayside after I had to hold a cranky baby for most of the day.  Finally, at 7:00, I realized we had nothing at all for Santa!  Luckily, Scott found these little beauties at the grocery store a few weeks earlier – right after Thanksgiving, they’re on sale.  While it’s not exactly festive, it got the job done.  Santa didn’t care.

Bikes, roller skates, Leapster 2, a Bumbo for the baby, a Kindle Fire for mom and a TV for all of us.  Santa rocks!

Andrew was enjoying hugging his stocking

Star Wars, The Complete Saga.  Joe was pumped.

About as excited as little boys should be when they get matching clothes.

Mommy got Daddy a helmet to go with his bike from Santa.  Who are we kidding.  I did NONE of the Christmas shopping.  Poor Scott braved all of the crowds and lines and parking lots.  God bless him.

Loving the Bumbo.  He’s pretty strong, so only a month or two and we can do the Bumbo for real.

Luke is pumped about Uno Attack.  Uno is a daily game here in our house.

Pat’s dream Lego set.  He’s been talking about it for months.  It will take less than an hour to lose a piece.

Santa left an extra gift hidden in the tree:  A one year pass to LEGOLAND, here in Dallas.  That Santa knows just what we love.

 

Some other random photos for you to enjoy:

Andrew loves kissing baby Peter

Joe in his Boy Scout uniform.  They had a Christmas party at their Pack meeting and he made this Santa sleigh out of candy.

Precious.

Grammie and Granddad are here to visit us now.  We’re really working hard on getting Andrew to go #2 on the toilet, so we brought the potty chair out in the living room.  Grammie volunteered to help him pass the time by reading a story.  The ‘end’ result: nothing to show for the effort.  Keep trying, Andrew!

Flying Solo

Mom left this morning.  It was hard not to break down and cry.  I know this is my fifth baby, but I really need my mom’s help when they come!  We don’t know what we would have done with out her.  Thanks, Mom!!!

As it was, Peter woke up at 3:30 this morning and was determined to not go back to sleep.  I stuck him in the swing and turned on the Christmas Tree lights.  For ONE SOLID HOUR, he stared at the lights quietly.  If I still have my tree up in July, you’ll all know why.

The later morning did not improve, either.  Finally, after feeding him twice in a row, I fell asleep holding him.  He must have fallen asleep, too (that’s the only possible way this scenario can work) because I woke up with my face kind of leaning forward on him.  I had DROOLED all over his head!!  Poor guy!

(If you were wondering how I got a few quiet minutes to even fall asleep on the couch with the baby, it was Grandma’s doing.  Last night we opened some Christmas gifts from her and Grandpa.  The Lego sets kept them busy and quiet for hours this morning.  Halleluiah!)

When I was in the hospital, I was joking with one of the young nurses about how I had to eat breakfast while nursing Peter.  “I’ve already eaten biscuit off of the top of his head”  She insisted that I was ‘joking’ and didn’t believe me.  Um, yeah, I’ve never eaten any food that fell on my kids’ heads… What I didn’t tell her was that it had a bit of jelly that I may or may not have licked off.  She was so appalled at the first confession, I couldn’t bear to shock her any more.  Clearly, that woman had no kids.

Heard around our house recently:

Joe:  When Peter is done milking, can we play Uno?

Andrew: (to mom who was holding a crying Peter) Put Peter over there! (pointing to the swing)

In other baby news, Peter has eyelashes now.  They are growing in slowly (okay, quickly, seeing as he’s only 12 days old…)  I forgot that they don’t have them when they’re born.  Seriously, I didn’t think that little guy could get any cuter!  Also, he had grey-ish blue eyes.  For an infant in this family, we call that pre-brown.

This picture doesn’t even really look like him.  He looks so fat and round-faced here, but he isn’t really.  I just thought it was a good shot of his dark eyes.

Don’t you wish you were snuggling up with this little sweetie right now?

And, in case you were wondering about practical matters with a new baby, yes, we are getting taken care of quite well with meals from fellow parishioners.  Today, we got this AWESOME cake with our dinner.  One of the moms bringing dinner had a boy that wants to go to culinary school so he’s taking a cake decorating class.  He made this gumball machine cake for us!  How cool is that?  People are so generous.  It’s really making us feel so at home.

For Unto Us a Child is Born…

Luke wrote that on a piece of paper as a welcome poster for mom and baby… how fitting this season.

5:30 am check in at the hospital – time for one last picture of mom’s HUGE belly.  The last measurement was 46 1/2 cm (equal to someone 46 1/2 weeks pregnant!)

First picture of baby boy.  This was about the time that we finally decided on his name:  Peter Michael.  He was SO pink and hollering right away!  We actually thought he might have some red tints to his hair, but it ended up being just his very pink skin.  Arrival time: 7:57am.  Future pilot?

Loopy mom and baby Peter get to meet.  Mom’s hands and arms were numb, so it was a little tough to snuggle those first few hours.

Peter gets his nursery check up and springs a leek.  Classic move, just like his brothers.

Finally able to snuggle with mom.  What a sweet little baby.  We noticed his ‘stork bite’ right away.  It’s on his forehead.  So far, we’ve thought it looks like a heart, a butterfly and a ‘grandma kiss’ – Like a sweet Texas grandma with lipstick on gave him a good smack right above his nose.  Maybe ‘Angel Kiss’ is a better name for it.

Patrick and Luke are delighted to meet him and hold him for the first time.  Luke was especially delighted to learn that Peter has a ‘double crown’ just like Luke does (remember, that’s how we could tell the twins apart at first)

Big Brother Joe is a pro at this baby holding thing.

This picture only took about 47 tries.

The older boys investigate their new brother.  Grandma does a good job of showing off his toes and belly button to interested little eyes.

Very content in Grandma’s arms.  She’s a pro at the grandma thing by now… number eight!

Snuggled in Daddy’s arms.

So bright-eyed and alert!

Dr. Fogwell… what a great doctor.  We were blessed to have him.

The little man is all ready to go home!

Big Brother of the Year

Joe is up for big brother of the year.  Not only does Andrew now come into his (twin) bed with him to steal the covers and take over all of the room,

but this morning, Joe informed us that Andrew had wet the bed.  Joe’s bed.

One week to go!

Just an FYI for all of you out there, we are expecting baby boy #5 (yet unnamed!) to be making his appearance via c-section on December 9, at 7:30am.

These last few weeks since the move have been rough on this old body, and I’ve been ordered to take it easy (as in: sit on couch instead of unpacking)  We thought this baby would be coming earlier, but we’re lucky everyone’s holding steady.

My mom is coming the day before the birth and will be here until right before Christmas, God bless her.  This will be our first time not being in Kansas City for Christmas!  It will be nice to be able to start some of our own traditions, but sad to miss out on all of the family time (and the food, of course… anytime I get to eat awesome food without having to cook it is a bonus!)

Right now, I’m 38 weeks along.  Last week, I was measuring 43 weeks, so we’re expecting a pretty big boy!  Can’t believe I actually found and washed all of those preemie clothes ‘just in case.’  I think we can safely pack those back up!

The boys are all very excited to welcome a new brother.  Thank you for all of your prayers.