Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Welcome Matthew Charles Butler!!

My gorgeous new nephew, Matthew Charles, was born on August 17Th at 8:13am. He was 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and 20 1/2 inches long. Both mommy and baby are doing great!

Isabel and I get to meet the new little cutie-pie.

Look at that adorable little face!!

Doesn't Sarah look great?!
Sammi and Matthew: 7 weeks between the two. I can't wait to see how they compare in size in a couple of weeks. I love this photo! They seem to like each other already. :)

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Summer is flying by....

Sammi is 6 weeks old already, time has flown by!! She is a sweet and happy baby for the most part, and actually a decent sleeper compared to how her big sister was. Sammi is gaining weight like a champ. She was 7 pounds and 10 ounces at her 1 month checkup, that's a gain of 2 pounds in just 3 weeks! I can't wait to see what she'll be up to at her 2 month appointment. We're adjusting pretty well to being a family of 4. Isabel loves to sing to Sammi and Sammi definitely loves her big sister. We've been staying busy spending lots of time with family and friends. My niece Sophia just turned 2 this past weekend so we went to her birthday party on Saturday. Other than that we're just trying to survive the heat and humidity and enjoy our summer. :)
My 2 girls on the couch. :)
Gramma with birthday girl Sophia and little Sammi.
Sophia loves Sammi so much and wants to hold and snuggle her every minute. It's adorable, we just have to watch her to make sure she doesn't try to carry Sammi off. ;)
Sweet Sophia snuggling Sammi on my lap.
The birthday girl on her new trike. The expression on her face is her "cheese" face that she makes whenever anyone takes her picture. :)
Sophia's new kitchen was a big hit with all the kiddos. :)
And this one is just a funny pic of Jasper and Abby playing together. Yup, they look like they're about to kill each other, but they're really just playing. This was the first time I'd seen Jasper climb into the dollhouse though, guess he was looking for a bit more leverage against Abby. ;)

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Samantha Grace

Samantha Grace Hicks arrived on Friday June 26th at 2pm. She weighed in at a very tiny 5 pounds and 12 ounces and was 18 1/2 inches long. I'll blog more soon(ish) but for now here's some pics to enjoy. Isabel meeting her new baby sister.
All the kiddos: my niece and nephew, Sophia and Rowan, and Isabel and Sammy. What a crowded bed.

Jason snapped this one of Sammy and I sleeping in one morning.

Here she is about a week old, still so tiny against my hand.
And sleeping oh so sweetly. :)

Monday, June 22, 2009

Meet our newest family member...

Abigail the puppy. The other new family member will be arriving at the end of this week. :) We actually got Abby about 3 1/2 weeks ago, but I'm just getting around to blogging about her now. Yeah, I'm a slacker blogger these days. Isabel has declared her full name to be Abigail Cutie-Pie. She is certainly an adorable little handful. We are having a blast with her, especially Isabel. She is 1/2 Border Collie, 1/4 Australian Shepherd, and 1/4 German Shepherd. You'd never know there was any German Shepherd in her from her coloring though. I took these first two pics the very first night that she was home with us:
This was after Isabel and Abby had run all around the house and played together for about an hour.

And this one shows what I hope happens every night from now on. ;) They were just so sweet all curled up on the floor together, they both slept well that night.



Ack, this one just shifted to one side and I can't get it back! Oh well, it's a cute pic of Isabel and Abby that Jason took while he was out on a hike with them. He's been great about taking them both out for long walks or hikes about 3 or 4 nights a week. It's also fun to watch them both tearing around the backyard together.


Too much cuteness for words!

Pretty girl.

She has already grown a ton since we got her, we swear she grows an inch a day. When we got her our cat Jasper outweighed and out sized her, now she's already bigger than him. (he's a pretty big cat) It's pretty funny to watch Abby try to play with Jasper. She tries to engage him and he mostly just smacks her in the face with his paws. I'm proud of him for standing his ground, he definitely won't let her rule the roost. ;)
So pretty soon I should have another update involving the next newest member of our family: Samantha Grace, who is due to arrive this Friday. Stay tuned...
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Overdue Updates

I just realized that I last posted when I was 18 weeks pregnant, so since I'm now 29 1/2 weeks, that's a really long lag time between posts! Oops! In my defense, it has been an awfully busy time around here. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going by, seems to be much quicker than when I was pregnant with Isabel. The doctors and ultrasound techs all tell us that we're having another girl. Lucky Jason to be surrounded by so many females, right? :) He was a little overwhelmed at the thought at first, but he has rapidly adjusted and is thrilled. Isabel is totally excited about being a big sister and she hugs and kisses my belly all the time. Strangely enough, the one thing she mentions over and over again is that she wants to help change baby sister's stinky diapers. Huh, weird kid, right? But I'm all for that idea!
Easter has come and gone and Spring is supposedly here, although we've seen only a few days so far that seem at all Spring-like. I've managed to get my garden raked out and ready to be rototilled and I should have a few things planted by the end of the month. Although this year I am going to go a bit easier on the tomatoes and try for veggies that don't require a lot of work. I'm counting on Isabel being super excited about helping out in that area as well, as I'm sure finding the time to care for the garden will be a little tougher once baby #2 arrives.
Another reason that so much time has passed since I've done a blog update is that we've been hit hard this season with colds and illnesses. I think I've had about 3 colds this winter and I'm just now getting over a sinus infection with the help of some antibiotics. Isabel has had the sniffles off and on for most of the winter, and I don't think that my sister's household has seen a single day where they were all healthy all winter long! I'm definitely looking forward to warmer weather and the end of cold season!
Last week on Monday my sister and I decided to take the kiddos to Look Park in Northampton; it was one of the warmer days we'd seen yet. We had a wonderful time on the playground, but on our way back to Sarah's house with our lunch we were in a car accident. It wasn't Sarah's fault, a guy cut us off at an intersection causing us to crash right into his car. It was definitely scary though - both of us pregnant with all 3 of our kiddos in the car. Oh yeah, did I mention before that Sarah is pregnant too? Due 7 weeks after I am. :) Back to the accident: ambulance rides for all of us, a few hours at the ER, and we all escaped with only a few bruises and a lot of paperwork. All the kids were fine, Isabel had some scratches on her neck from her car seat and Rowan and Sophia had not a mark on either of them. But it was definitely a scary time and something I'd rather never repeat again.
So on a happier note, here's a few pics from Easter:The night before Easter we decorated a dozen eggs together. I asked Isabel to wear her apron to not get her shirt dirty, and she asked to wear her chef's hat too. :) Such concentration! The look of pride at her handiwork. :)

She then decorated every egg with many, many stickers. You can see how she really concentrated on making sure each egg was perfectly covered with the right number of stickers too. :) She had a blast picking out which colors to eat the next morning too.
I think the pics from our Easter morning egg hunt are still on the camera. If I think of it I'll add those on here later. She had a blast though searching the living room for eggs filled with either pennies or chocolate. One funny story: that afternoon she asked Jason if she could bring her basket upstairs during her naptime and he, without thinking, said yes. He had filled her basket with the green plastic fake grass stuff, and a few chocolate eggs and some other goodies. She never slept that day, just played in her room, and came down a couple hours later telling her daddy, "Daddy, I only ate 3 pieces of chocolate." Then I went in her room and discovered that she had spread plastic grass on every available surface in her room: every inch of the floor, her table, her bed, everywhere. When I asked her about it she told me, "Mommy, I was making a beautiful forest." That's one mess she didn't get in trouble for since we figured that it was mostly Jason's fault for letting her take the basket in there in the first place. She did get the rest of the grass taken away though and Jason had some fun vacuuming up the forest in her room. :)

Here's Isabel and Rowan at my Gramma's house after Easter dinner. They both look so grown-up to me!
And finally, a prego pic of me. :)
I'll try not to let so much time go by before I update here again. Happy Spring everyone! :

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Surprise!!

Here are the first photos of Isabel's baby sister or brother. Yup, I'm pregnant! I'm 18 weeks tomorrow, due July 2nd. It looks like another girl, according to the ultrasound tech, but it was a little early, so she wasn't 100% sure. Isabel has been convinced all along that it's a baby sister. I'm doing pretty well, although I'm super tired. And I'm in pregnant clothes a lot sooner this time! Amazing how your body just remembers how to be pregnant.;) I guess I'll have to change the name of the blog when it's no longer mostly about Isabel! ;) Enjoy the pics of the little alien child. :) 2 little feet.
Right in the middle is a hand and arm.

And here is the alien baby profile shot. :)




Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, all a bit late...

Well I've been a bit lax about my blog updates as of late, sorry about that. The day after Christmas Jason and I both got hit hard with a horrible cold, one of the worst I've ever had, and we were pretty much out of commission for most of the next week. Now we're all recovered and so far Isabel hasn't managed to catch it, so all is well again. Jason and I, with help from my parents, bought a new camera for Christmas and took a million pictures. I'm only including a small selection here. We had a lovely Christmas this year, Isabel and my niece and nephew are just the right age to really enjoy it all. The week before Christmas Jason and I took Isabel to Yankee Candle to meet Santa there. Isabel was excited about it, and then a bit intimidated when she actually saw him. It took 2 tries, but right before we left she actually talked to him and told him her Christmas wish list. He was a great Santa, one of the best I've seen, I wish we could've gotten better pictures of her with him, but below is one where at least she is facing him. ;)
Christmas morning was quite eventful. We had gone to the candlelight Christmas Eve service the night at my parents' church with them and my sister and her kids, then stayed up late assembling gifts and wrapping presents. It was all worth it the next morning though. Isabel loved the dollhouse that Jason had spent hours assembling. She woke up at 7:30 and came in to our room asking if Santa had brought her any presents. She didn't even see the dollhouse at first when we went downstairs, but the next picture captures her response when she saw it: I just love that enraptured look on her face, such excitement. 3 year olds are awfully fun on Christmas. :)She got a bunch of rather girly gifts this year, we got her a tea set as well as the dollhouse. I do love that in the above picture she is serving tea to her Lightning McQueen car. That's my girl.
She doesn't wear dresses very often, so she was very excited about wearing this one and looking so pretty. I just love how she's holding her chin up and looking so proud of herself as she prances around the living room. She looks so grown-up to me in this picture too.

I just love this close-up that Jason got of her at my parents' house on Christmas morning. After we did our presents at our house it was off to my mom and dad's for brunch and more gifts. My sister and brother-in-law and Rowan and Sophia were there as well.

Rowan and Isabel pulled out their rocking chairs to sit in while checking out their stockings, so cute. After opening many more gifts there we headed off to my Gramma's house for lunch and even more gifts for the little ones. It was a very busy day! When we got home it was naptime for all of us.
Isabel got her first set of cross-country skis from my parents. I think that was my favorite of all her gifts. We had snow before Christmas, but it rained on Christmas day and didn't snow again till the following Wednesday. That morning Isabel woke us up saying "It's snowing out, can I go skiing?" We managed to wait a few hours and then took her out. The above picture is her practicing in the living room, I wanted to make sure she could stand in them before sticking her out in the snow on them. I am so proud of her! As soon as we went outside she headed straight for the hill down our backyard! She did great, fell a bunch, but never got frustrated and really loved it. The skis are really the cutest things ever, my parents got them from LL Bean and they're a whole lot nicer than the yellow plastic ones I had at her age. ;) I'm just so happy that my little girl loves the snow and skiing so much. I kept saying to Jason "This is one of the proudest days of my life". He thought I was crazy. ;)
Doesn't she look so cute on her skis? I wish I'd gotten a pic of her headed down the hill, but I wasn't thinking ahead enough to have the camera out right away.
So a late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you! It was a crazy busy season for us, but a very enjoyable one. I hope you all had wonderful holidays as well. :)