I still think Isaac looks quite a bit like Genna! Look!

What do you think?

Isaac

Genna

LOL

Isaac laughed for the first time a couple of nights ago-in his sleep after I nursed him. I mean a really good chuckle! I forgot how different baby laughs are from toddler ones. I can hardly wait until he is doing it when he's awake.

Isaac also seems to have his first case of the sniffles. The girls were much older when they had their first sniffles, but that trip to the ER seems to have given all three of the kiddos the sniffles. There is no fever or even crankiness with it, but it does seem to be making it hard for Isaac to sleep at night as well as he was before. The sleep interruptions didn't faze him at all, in fact he was even more smiley this morning than usual. The battery died on the camera so I missed a great chance to catch more smiles on camera.

Since he is almost 2 months, I am trying to work him into a schedule of some kind. Today he has been doing well with falling asleep unassisted after his wake time. In fact, if I am not paying attention to his sleep cues he will just drift off where ever he is, but I am shooting for the crib for nap times. The girls tend to wake him up otherwise.
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I added our current reading lists to the side bar of the blog. All except for Brian's because it is football season and that is taking up all his free time at night.
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It is very cold again today. Brian promised Hannah this morning that he would make a fire and have hot chocolate with her tonight. She was so looking forward to it that she wanted to save her PB&J sandwich to have with the hot chocolate in front of the fire. How funny! I told her she could eat dessert or something after dinner instead of going hungry until then.

The big sisters and the horse show!

Here are my loving little girls! I love when they pose like this! Oh, and I just noticed that they are standing under their respective shadow boxes of their going home outfits in the background. How perfect!

Genna adores her big sis! Look at how she is looking at her!


We walked down the road to a horse show/competition. I told Hannah about it a few days ago, and she kept asking me when we were going to the horse movie. :) The girls got ice cream while we were there, and Genna was a disaster!

Hannah's doing some weird dance while I was taking this one. Look at Genna's face! It's blueberry ice cream.

I LOVE this one! It just shows their personalities well or something.


I kind of went blogging crazy today. Brian had the camera this weekend, and I took a million pictures today when he got back. I must have been in withdrawal.

My Little Buddy

I thought this was cute. He was laying happily under his play gym while I was doing the dishes and the girls were napping. I realized he had gotten pretty quiet and peaked around the corner to find him like this. What an angel! I have just been exceptionally enamored with this little guy today. I can't get enough of his chubby little arms and legs.

This was after bath time. I don't have many pictures of me with my little buddy, so I asked Brian to take a few.

Here's Isaac looking at me so sweetly.

I recalled a picture of Genna looking at me like that. Here it is. Genna was just about the same age too. I love when that happens!The only thing is my hair color mysteriously changed. I wonder how that happened?

Daddy's Fun

Brian fly fishing in Austria

Oktoberfest in Munich-They stopped in Munich in transit for one night to hit the Oktoberfest. They have the biggest pretzels ever!

We're glad he's home!

Things that make me laugh...

I love when kids mess up words! Hannah calls one of her favorite books The Lizard of Oz and Genna says "back and forest" instead of "back and forth". I caught them both singing "Sonya in the highest" the other day instead of "Hosanna in the highest." (Sonya is one of Hannah's teachers.) Genna says "bubel" instead of beautiful. Hannah calls croutons "kryptons" and used to call elevators "alligators," but she gets that one right now days.

Side note: Saturday was a much better day. God did have mercy on me! Daddy's on his way home right now, and we are all happy about that.

What is wrong with my daughter?!!

Here's a quick list of all the dangerous things that Genevieve did this evening, most of which were in a ten minute period of time.

1. tried to knock over the highchair while she was in it (on purpose!)
2. tried to climb out of her crib for the first time ever, luckily I was in the room
3. drank shampoo (you think I'm kidding?)
4. found a Q-tip and stuck it in her ear
5. tried to climb into the tub and almost fell into it (it's a deep tub and would of really done some damage head first)
6. somehow made the dog (who's never actually bit anyone) bite her (he did not break the skin, but did leave teeth marks)

Whew! How can one seemingly sweet and innocent child get into so much trouble? She's usually my easy one, but every once in a while she has one of these days. I suspect she played in her crib and did not actually take her nap today. May God have mercy on me tomorrow! Brian is in Austria on a long weekend fly fishing trip and won't be back until late on Sunday. I don't know how many more days like this I can take on the amount of sleep I've been getting.

Isaac and the double chin

Here's a picture of our big boy. He'll be 7 weeks tomorrow. He's had a weird couple of days, sleeping either a ton or barely at all (for his standards anyway) during the day. The nights are pretty much the same, except when he wakes up in the morning varies quite a bit (anywhere from 6-8am.)

Funnies

We were having way too much fun while Genna finished up her dinner last night. Daddy was singing to her and she started joining in. The video shakes a bit, because I was laughing so hard I could not hold the camera still. Let's just say she was a little off key.



Here the girls are doing their funny laughs that they do sometimes.

Yet another trip to the ER!

I guess I should just get used to this, huh? Hannah bumped her chin on the tile floor and somehow cut it pretty deep. I didn't see it happen, but she said she was scooting on her tummy and her chin went into the floor. She ended up with 3 stitches! My poor baby! I am so thankful that it wasn't on the front of her face and that it wasn't too bad. She was super brave! I was surprised since she's usually my overly dramatic one. She didn't cry much at all when it happened and not at all when they did the stitches. Luckily they had a kid's movie in the room on so she was totally distracted. After we left, she asked me why they were pulling all that hair out of her chin. :) I guess the sutures looked like hair to her. Brian was out of town for the day and so all the kids and I had to go to the ER. Genna had a little crush on the male doctor. While he was finishing up with Hannah, Genna says, "Doctor, I love you." The doctor gave the girls princess crowns before we left. Genna asked the doctor to put hers on for her. He said that was the first time he had been asked to do that. We barely made it home in time for me to go to the parent-teacher night at Hannah's kindergarten. I don't know why I rushed, it was all in German and I was so tired. I only caught every 4th or 5th word anyway.

Here she is:

Stevie Wonder said it best...

Isn't she lovely?
Isn't she wonderful?
Isn't she precious?
Less than four years old.
I never thought through love we'd be
Making one as lovely as she.
But isn't she lovely made from love?

Bye bye, Bubbas!

Sunday, Genna took one more step in the big girl direction. She gave up her pacifiers, AKA her Bubbas. She was only allowed to have them in the crib since she was born pretty much (other than car and airplane emergencies). Well, I was trying to wait until we were adjusted with Isaac and all that. We did it the same way we did it with Hannah because it went so smoothly. We packed them up in a bag and took them to Mass to leave on the altar after wards to "give to Jesus so He can give them to new babies that need them." She was very brave. Then we went to the store so she could pick out a toy as a reward. I was a little worried since Genna had developed this weird relationship with her pacifiers. She had three in her crib, one for each hand and one for her mouth. She named them, there was the "Monster," the "Prince," and the "Princess." Strange, but cute! Anyways, she did great and still asks for them and gets sad, but doesn't cry or anything. She picked out a stuffed dog that she named "Alice."

I told Genna that I wanted to get a picture of her with her Alice and Hannah disappears for a minute upstairs and pops into the picture with her Lucy, the dog she got when she gave her Bubbas up when she was two. So here they are, my big girls!

6 Weeks old!

Here's my big boy! I can't believe it's been six weeks already. Isaac is such a good baby! God has really blessed us! He is the only one of our three who can be hysterical one minute and sound asleep the next with no intervention. It's actually funny to witness. He's smiling a little bit more now, but mostly only at me so far. The best way to get him to smile is by smiling at him. He seems to mimic me. He's very serious most of the time though. He's definitely getting much love from his sisters. They are already hovering and smothering!

"Enough pictures already! I need a nap!"

Sibling Love

I just couldn't narrow these down very much and so I am posting a lot of photos here.


I only wish I had planned a better back drop because I don't think I could have ended up with better pictures, but you never know how these things will go with three little ones, all with minds of their own. :) These were taken Friday!

More on Genna and an update on Hannah too!

Before the big fall the other day, I was videoing Genna doing different things that I thought were cute. This first video clip is of Genna saying the word umbilical cord and having a discussion on what happened to Isaac's cord. I love the way she says umbilical!



The second vieo clip is of her singing a song from our Bear CD that Mimi and Poppa Boat got them while in Canada. The song goes, "When a bear cub finds his teddy bear" (repeated a few times) then "He'll give a big bear hug to you." I think it's better when it is spontaneous and there is no camera, but still it's cute.



Another cute sisterly love story:
Today, while driving to get Hannah from school, Genna said, "I get sad when I leave from Hannah. That makes me sad, but when we get her from kindergarten it makes me SO happy!"

Mini update on Hannah's school:
She is doing better the last few days. They had a field trip this Wednesday to a restaurant in town to eat. They walked there as a class. She loved it! Since then she's been saying things like, "I wonder what we're going to do tomorrow." And the last two days when I picked her up, she didn't want to leave. This is an answer to prayer! I really want her to enjoy it as much as she would in an American school. Then she'll be more able to learn the language which is the whole point. She did, however, have an accident at school today and came home wearing someone else's pants (even though I had extra clothes in her backpack.)

What's really important?

Even if your not Catholic, you should watch this. It brought tears to my eyes.



Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61wj4tJICcc

A good doctor patient relationship

Well, it's already cold here and we're wearing socks. All summer, I've been telling the girls not to run in the house since we have tile floors. So, of course they don't listen and here is the consequence...
Genna's feet went flying out from under her and she landed flat on her forehead. My poor baby! I had already begun to say, "Stop running in the house," but it was to late. I saw the whole thing. Well, then Hannah really was trying to help and was just getting in the way, so I suggested a way she could help her sis. They played Nurse Hannah and Patient Genna. While Genna held the ice pack on her head, Hannah played nurse and pretended that other parts of her were hurt so she could doctor them. It distracted Genna so she could stay still and keep ice on here head. It looks a lot better now (this happened yesterday) and luckily for me her bangs cover it so I don't have to see it every time I look at her. Because every time I see a pretty bad wound on one of my babies, it breaks my heart. Just like the cast.

Just in time!

Isaac arrived just in time for the Neuer Wein season to start. It is a brief season, so I am glad I don't have to miss it. Neuer Wein, or new wine, is from grapes that have just started to ferment and so the alcohol content is crazy low. This one is the white, but they also have a red. The white tastes a bit like lemonade and the red one tastes like grape juice to me with a hint of alcohol. They are very sweet and a tiny bit sour. It's just another fun thing for us to experience in Germany! With winter comes Glühwein, a hot mulled wine!

For all the moms out there!

Here is a website by a friend of mine about childrens' nutrition. I will add it to my new blog roll on my side bar too. This is such a great idea since this is a constant battle we moms face.

His Best Colors

The kids all have different skin tones. I think Hannah looks yummy in yellows, Genna looks pretty in purples, and they both look beautiful in pale blues! Isaac seems to look his best in browns, tans, and navy/dark blues...earthy tones. See what I mean?

I crocheted this hat for him when I was pregnant.

Now, I never actually saw Austin Powers, but I've seen commercials of it and seen people do impressions of Dr. Evil. Does this remind anyone else of Dr. Evil with the pinky finger? (I think I have the name right.)

Pretty Little Painters

Hannah actually got paint on her eyelid this time! I was surprised to see anything on her! Usually her hands are even clean!


Genna has her apron on because she's the messy one! Every time we get out the paints she tells me how Poppa Boat taught her to make a hand print with the paints. Thanks Poppa Boat!

Playing Candyland Solo

Here's a cute video of Genna playing Candyland all by herself. I thought it was funny. She is hard to hear at some points, but you can hear most of it. Hannah and her played it together yesterday all by themselves for the first time. I was cooking dinner so I was not watching to see if they were really playing correctly, but i could hear Hannah directing Genna on where to move and when it was her turn.

Isaac's Movie Debut!

This isn't really super interesting since he's not doing much yet, but I thought his relatives overseas may want to see it since most of them haven't met him yet.

Daddy time! It's inevitable that within moments of handing him off to Daddy, he's fast asleep!

Here's the tail end of his smile. It's as close as I have gotten to catching it on camera so far.

Since we have tile floor, this is his spot when we are down stairs. I have my yoga mat under his blanket on the rug to make it as soft as possible. Of course, he's got his swing, his highchair, and his vibrating seat to choose from as well.

Here he is in his reclining highchair where he can watch Mommy cook.

Dress Up Queens

Here are my goofy girls all dressed up! Genna told me they were going to the Wizard of Oz.

Frühstück mit meiner Familie am Kindergarten

Translation: Breakfast with my family at kindergarten

Today was a very special day, and so, of course, we overslept! So I was rushing to have us all dressed and looking half decent for Hannah's breakfast at her kindergarten. We made it though! We had German breakfast (a potluck) and then the older kids did a little puppet show. Then the younger ones, Hannah included, did a song with hand motions. Usually Hannah won't let go of my leg when I'm there, but I was very proud of her for going up to participate. Genna helped a bit, I think, by going up with her at the beginning. She sang most of the song and did the hand motions too. Here are the pictures:

Here is when Genna was standing up there with her. Hannah's in the green shirt and Genna's in the pink shirt, in case you can't tell.

Here is when she's singing the song.

Here she is afterward with her proud sister!

Way to go, Hannah!