What a great day!

Since G isn't in school right now, I thought it would be fun to host a Christmas party at our house with all of his friends. The list went from having 5 to having 10. We had so much fun, the kids played so well together and I even got some quality time with my friends.

We painted trains, played in the fake snow and ate yummy food.

I am exhausted tonight, but feel extremely blessed to have such great friends and hopefully their children and ours will be as great of friends as we are!


-

blah blah blah

So lately I have felt very grown up, I don't know if it's having two kids or if I am just getting older "gasp".

We have been super busy lately, between being sick, I am back to work, holiday events, introducing baby girl to the world and so forth. I have noticed that as selfish as it sounds that by the time the weekend arrives that I really just want to spend time with just my family. So if you don't hear from us as much don't take it personal we are just busy being parents and loving every moment of it!



-

Santa

I have to admit that I have become somewhat of a homebody since having baby girl, for one it takes a lot more time to get both of them ready and out the door and another is that G is not a fond of carts... need I say more.

Well I decided that I was going to be brave and do Santa pictures by myself. Our appointment was at 10:40 and I started getting ready around 8 and good thing I did. G's apparently has grown about two inches since I bought his Christmas outfit so after trying on three different outfits I was finally pleased with his outfit. He on the other hand was not. Baby girl was easy it only took me changing her outfit twice.

The whole way there I kept pumping up Santa. I told G that he was so lucky that he was going to be able to see Santa and that we had a very special visit planned. The moment we walked in he was all smiles, he walked straight up to him and jumped on his lap. We managed to get several really good pictures. One thing I forgot to mention is that the past month every time we have been in the store and G has wanted something we have told him that we would tell Santa and that he would maybe get it for him at Christmas...back to the pictures. Once we where done with the pictures I told G that it was time to tell Santa goodbye and to get down off his lap and his response was he hasn't given me my helicopter yet. Santa being the great Santa he was responded that he was going to bring it to our house on Christmas. G's response was "Yes, you can play choo choos with me"... I love being a mom.

So much to blog, but so little time

The past couple months have flown by so quickly and I am very aware that my blogging has slowed down. Life has been busy, but wonderful. Sylvie is growing so fast, smiles constantly and is so loved by her big brother. I was unsure and nervous about how he would adjust and he has done wonderfully especially for only being two.

We spent Thanksgiving at home this year due to us all being sick, didn't want to risk getting Dandy & GranDawn sick and truthfully didn't have the energy to make the trip. I will blog more later about the day. It turned out to be a really special day for us.

We our in full force getting ready for Christmas. Josh and I are like two kids when it comes to shopping for Gid and Sylvie, I think we truthfully are a little out of control :-) The benefits of having two incomes and only two kids. Going tomorrow to do Santa pictures which I am sure will be interesting.

Just wanted to take a moment and post some updated pictures.

She is a keeper!

Wouldn't you agree!
-

Shutterfly - My hobby

So I have to say that a lot of my friends are extremely talented. One of my best friends from Cali can sing like an angel and has started painting, I have to admit she is totally awesome at it. I have another friend that can sew anything, a friend that can crochet, another friend that makes gorgeous cakes, and the list goes on... I on the other hand am not artsy. I have tried - taken classes and so on. I was whining, I mean talking to J the other night about this and he said that my talent is Shutterfly. I started laughing and my reply was that it doesnt take talent to use Shutterfly, just determination to set aside the time. I have to admit I love all their products from their birth announcements http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/birth-announcements to how easy it is to upload pictures to http://www.shutterfly.com/upload-pictures/. I am excited this year to start working on our Christmas cards that will of course come from them. I counted and I have done over 50 photobooks. 34 are just of our family.

Tonight I was spending some time with G and I grabbed one of the books to have him look at it with me and his response was No- Mommy I want the train one. This being one of the books I did for him this summer of our trip to the Museum of Transportation. This melted my heart that he remembered that book.

I always considered it an addiction, not a hobby, but I think I have changed my mind. My favorite memory growing up was looking through all the photo albums my grandma had and I hope some day that my grandchildren will enjoy looking through these as much as I enjoyed making them.

Fall festivities

So we went apple picking Saturday, at the Eckert's Millstadt Family Fun Farm, with Tammy's parents and some of G's cousins. We had a great time and saw several friends unexpectedly. We started the day off right at IHoP with the new cinni-stax for us, a giant chocolate chip whipped cream smily pancake for G, and S had some milk and slept through breakfast :).



There were horse rides which G rode 3 times: (see cousin A on the horse behind him)




Plus G and I rode a camel! I kept thinking of the bit in the Seuss book Go Dog Go with the seven hump wump that belongs to Mr. Gump. Pictures of this will have to be added from the real camera.
Then we rode the carnival rides with the cousins, who screamed mightily inside the spinning apple ride (like the teacups, but enclosed). We had it spinning faster than anyone else riding. Honestly I was slowing them down to make sure everyone's lunch stayed down :)
Then we rode the swings, and the airplane swings, and drove the plywood tractor model (big win).


Then we went and picked some apples, while family friends Kay and Charles watched (spoiled probably) baby S.
Tammy has the good pics of that so look back later for them.

Sunday we started the day off right with homemade cinnamon apple swirls, that Tammy and G made with some apples from Saturday! Then went to the pumpkin patch and had even more fall fun with Cara, Eric, and Davin.

Naturally we rode a horse right away :)



Then Davin took G on the four wheeler barrel train, followed by a hay ride for all of us!



Here's a great picture of my beautiful wife with Baby S too. Check out that awesome hat Amanda made for her!




Anyway, we had a great time taking our kids out to enjoy the Fall weather and hang out with family and friends! Look for some extra pictures here once we get those pics off the real cameras :)

-Josh

Two weeks

Well it's been two weeks now since the arrival of our little girl, and things have settled into a routine now. Our friends and family have been a tremendous help, mostly by bringing dinner. Everyone has also been great about helping us keep G aware that he is still important and making sure he gets plenty of attention. I will also give a special thank you to Tammy's parents, for watching Gideon when we were in the hospital, and to her mom, who has been over to help out most days since I've gone back to work.

The baby has a wonderful temperament. She's very calm most of the time, unless she's hungry or being changed. On that topic, I'd like to state that we can't seem to change her without her peeing while we're doing so. Everyone always says to watch out for boys peeing on you when you are changing them, but with G he went mid-change maybe 3 or 4 times. S has peed about 3/4 of the times we change her. I suppose the warning then may really be that boys can hit you with it... :)
Anyway, we've found our basic sleeping routine now, which is the same routine we used when we had G, which is basically that I take watch until about 1am and she has 1 to 6. I suspect this will vary over time with my part increasing, but since she is nursing, that middle shift still requires Tammy's involvement.
Tammy is looking great and up and about quite a bit. Her main limitation now is for lifting things. I think we're doing really well with all of the changes this time. It certainly helps to have some idea of what to expect, and experience to guide how we handle it.
Since I expect this blog will someday become a book that both kids will read, I'll add some advice here: when you do have children, share the load. It can be very tough waking up in the night and doing your turn at feeding/burping/changing/rocking,and you may think, maybe if I let them cry, my partner will get up and do it... Never do this. If you are very exhausted or sick, ask for a night off, or swap shifts. Maybe offer to watch them so the other can nap during the next day or something. Just be sure you plan it out. Sleep loss is a heavy hitter, and if one of you falls too far behind on it, you both will suffer frustration, anxiety, and irritation.
So, we're doing well, getting as much sleep as we can. Now here are some pictures of our first weeks as a family of four.

Just as she arrived:



We got this of G being a big brother at the hospital:



Here's Daddy's favorite pic of her at the hospital:




Here's Mommy ready to go home:




A little face she made:



And here's my happy family all cuddled together:



Anyway, I'd say we're off to a great start.

Here at last

Meet Sylvia Barbara Dalton born September 2. She weighed 8lbs 3oz and is 20 inches long.

Almost time....

We are right at the 12 hour mark before baby Sylvie graces us with her presence. I decided to spend as much time with G today as possible and to finish up a couple of last minute things and at this point everything is almost done. I decided to go ahead and work tonight to keep busy and hoping that would help time fly and truthfully it has.

Thank you everyone for all the calls and text messages, I feel extremely loved and it has helped calm my nerves.

We have been talking about baby Sylvie for the past couple of months with G and I think yesterday he had enough of the talk, when we got up in the morning he said "lets go to the hospital and get Sylvie" I think someone else is ready to see this girl too.

So as of tomorrow we will be a family of four.

I like how that sounds.