Jan 2008

Time for the potentially boring life details that I need to keep track of. Feel free to skip ahead to the pics below!

We just had Paige's 2 year appt. She is doing great. She is 26lbs (50th percentile) and 33 1/4 inches (25-50th). Her head is 47cm (25-50th)--Noah's in Nov at ~10 months was 47.5cm. :) She is talking like crazy. You can have an entire conversation with her. Her sentences are usually 5-6 words long. Its great! She and Ethan play really well together until they both want the same toy. Then there is a lot of fighting. Noah and Noami do the same thing already. Paige's favorite game is playing momma. She has about 20 dolls and stuffed animals that get bottles, diapers, naps, and time outs every day.

Noami and Noah have their 1 year appts on the 29th.
Both babies are crawling all over the place. Naomi just figured it out yesterday and today she's been crawling into every room in the house. Noah has been crawling for a few weeks now but hasn't left the room until today to chase Naomi. Here we go with another round of baby proofing!!!

Naomi's favorite toy is this little mirror. She loves looking at the baby. She also likes any toy that plays music. As soon as it stops she'll push the buttons to start it again.

Noah just likes to explore and still doesn't play with anything for very long. He puts everything into his mouth. He still loves paper and the wipes containers.

Last week Naomi just figured out how to clap. It was so funny becuase she would try to imitate us and she's slap her face. Then, she'd look at us like "why'd you do that".

Noah has gotten great at eating. He'll eat table food that we smoosh up. Naomi won't even eat baby foods anymore. She has gotten very good at keeping her mouth closed, batting the spoon away, or spitting at us. She has tasted a few toys which is a step in the right direction.

We usually have all 4 kids in bed starting around 7 and done by a little after 8. Then Naomi is usually the first up by 630. Noah sometimes sleeps until 9 or later! Naomi, Ethan, and Paige are sleeping through the night. :) Noah still gets up 2-3 times. I am hoping to cut this down to 1 by June!

Ethan loves to earn screen times by doing math, reading, or writing. He loves to play Wii or Nintendo DS for his screen times. His favorite by far is the math. Sorry dad, he takes after me! He is doing addition and subtraction of all single digits. He can sound out words too, but doesn't really enjoy it. He can write most of his letters and numbers but still gets some lower case ones confused.

He is all over the house all day long playing elaborate imaginitive games that we can't follow. He still likes to use all sticks as guitars or drums.

Daddy is doing great adjusting to me going back to work this week. He's been wonderful and gets up every morning and cooks us all breakfast. He's also cooked dinner everynight for the past few months, along with doing the laundry, dishes, and helping at least 50/50 with the kids. I'm so spoiled!!!

Daddy and Naomi snuggle:


Big Kids snuggle:


Paige's birthday. She loved her chocolate cone. Ethan ran in to get in the first pic and then daddy ran in to get into the second

Bathtime. All 4 kids love the bath. Naomi and Ethan love to splash. Paige loves pouring water between cups. Noah crawls all over the other kids to get to anything that is not a toy, like the soaps. If I take them out of bath he tries to crawl out. I took him out this bath and he tried to crawl back in.

Babies playing together. They love eachother and squeal back and forth. Its so cute!

And I hadn't realized that I hadn't announced this yet, but we're expecting #5!!! I'm halfway done at 19 weeks and due June 9th. My tummy just went from chubby to obviously pregnant overnight 2 days ago!

Because of this news we've decided not to go to China. We thought that it would be nice to be around friends and family since we'll have 4 kids under the age of 3 in June. Plus, have maternity leave in June and being a family of 7 was causing all sorts of relo issues. We are very happy with this decision, but it took us some time to decide.

Dec 2008

Ethan's preschool had a winter festival program. Here are pics of Ethan performing and the little kids watching.

Our sunshine:

Our Noah: He LOVES the jumper. We try not to put him in it too often, but when we need him confined when we're in the shower this is great!

This may be hard to see, but Ethan was supposed to be laying in bed taking a nap. Daddy found him sitting up in his Shrek chair, leaning against his bed asleep.

First chance to play in the snow. Not enough for a snowman. Paige liked to eat it and Ethan liked to shovel it.

Meanwhile the little kids played inside:

All done.

Roo reading with Grams.

Snuggle time. :)

I'll have to ask Nona and Nandee to post Christmas pictures since they took all of the pics.

Nov 2008

Okay, I finally am going to post pics. Sorry that it has taken me sooo long!

In October we went to the zoo and had a cool encounter with the gorilla. It was up next to the glass and interacting with us. The kids loved it.

We also had the entire playground to ourselves! It was a really beautiful day too!!


Daddy, Paige, and Ethan coloring. (Daniella did Paigy's hair. There is no way that I have the skills to do that!)

While daddy was in Ethiopia picking up Naomi and Noah, Ethan and Paige helped Nandee and I put their cribs together.

Ethan took this pic of Nandee (Ryan's mom) and is very proud of it.

And then helped test them out.

While Nandee and I were finishing up, Paige was so tired that she went to Ethan's room and fell asleep behind his door.

Ethan fell at the park while daddy was gone so we had to get pics of his fat lip for daddy.

This became one of the kiddos favorite games in Nov and they still do it know. Ethan drives Paige around on the tricycle. They love to go in circles in the kitchen. In fact over Thanksgiving Ethan went to Nandee's house and Paige asked Noah to drive her in circles. :)

I love pics of kiddos when they're sleeping!

Testing out the baby toys while having toast.

Paigy bouncing balls, one of her favorite games. She calls it "bouncy". A few weeks ago, Ryan was tossing a ball up and catching it and Paige said, "more upsidedown bouncy".

Ethan being silly.

My first time meeting Noah and Naomi!!! Not sure Noah likes me, yet. :)

First time in carseats. Naomi doesn't seem to mind hers, but Noah doesn't like to be strapped in.

First time at home:

Ethan missed his daddy and he's happy watching the babies.

Paige first seeing Naomi the next day. She was so mad at Ryan the first day. Before he left for the week she was such a daddy's girl. When he got back she wouldn't even smile at him for an entire day.

Ethan and Noah playing for the first time. Noah instantly liked Roo and Ethan loves both babies.

Noah's nebulizer treatment. Luckily we only had to do this for the first week or two. Those are scabies on his face. Poor baby was covered in them. We were able to eliminate them with 2 med treatments and they were gone just after Thanksgiving. Naomi had a few too, but not very many.

Paige's first pudding. :)

The second day they were home we played on the bed with all 4 kids. :)

We've had our babies home almost 2 months now. We just celebrated Naomi's first birthday, which felt very odd since we haven't had her that long. Noah's is coming up in 3 weeks. Our entire family is fully adjusted and doing great. The babies are definitely attached to us and even to our house. We went to Nona's (my mom) for 2 days and they were both very happy when we got home. (Not that grandma's is bad!) We struggled for the first 2-3 weeks with being off schedule, scabies, ear infections, and colds. Both of our babies are behind for their age, but are quickly catching up. When Noah came home he couldn't sit up and could hardly roll over. He is already crawling and has interest in pulling up. However, his legs are are still week. We are trying to exercise them everyday to get them stronger. He also doesn't do any babbling, just crying and squealing. Naomi hasn't progressed as much. Noah is a terrific eater of baby foods and tries to eat small finger foods, however he can't get them from his fist to his mouth. Naomi came home with the ability to sit up and roll over once each way. She now can get from her tummy to sitting and move around on her tummy in a circle to get toys. Her biggest improvement is that she now eats baby food fruit. She won't eat anything else though and is very good at not eating what she doesn't want! When we got her home she didn't have a clue how to eat from a spoon. So we've made some progress. I'll post more as soon as I can!