Mommy's Happy Birthday!

I am one month old today!

I can smile now!

Look at how chubby I am starting to get!

What a cute little frog!

The 4 cousins together.

Decorating a pumpkin at Coborn's with Mommy!

Teague, Megan and Alex

What do you think??

Mommy and Auntie celebrating our birthdays together!

Yay! Mommy's Happy Birthday! I think that Teague must be getting somewhat confused about all the birthdays that we keep celebrating - Papa's, Auntie's, Mommy's, Amanda's....etc. You'd think he would stop crying with the happy birthday song, but no. I had a great birthday. We went out for breakfast to Charlie's, Dana and Ken were here from Seattle and brought us Val's for lunch, and then Ryan's parents and Megan and Alex came to watch the kids while Ryan and I went out for dinner to Ciatti's! No cooking for me, again! WOO HOO!

Like I mentioned, Ryan's sister Dana and her hubby Ken were here and so we spent a lot of the weekend in St. Cloud. Ryan was off Thursday and Friday. On Saturday Erica, Dustin and I took the kids over to the Coborn's shopping area in Sartell for the pre-Halloween Trick or Treating. It was good practice for Teague to be able to say trick or treat. He looked so adorable in his frog costume!

My baby Lola is already one month old today!!! This month has just flew by, so sad at how fast this is going! Lola smiled at me for the first time last Monday (3 weeks and 3 days old - so advanced since they supposedly don't normally smile until 6 weeks - she's the same age Teague was when he started smiling too). She is also trying to talk to us with a little cooing here and there too. So adorable, of course. Lola was suffering quite the stuffed up nose so sleeping was tough for a couple of nights, but she seems to be back to normal now (thank goodness, it was so sad to see her so stuffy and struggling to breathe).

Have a great week. I hope you enjoy the video below of Teague demonstrating how a froggy jumps and what it says!

3 weeks

Not much new to report here. Life is going along very nicely and we are all doing so well! We had a nice weekend (minus the snow OF COURSE). Saturday our friends Jere and Meghan, along with their boys, came from Monticello to visit and made us a really yummy dinner. It was so fun to see them and to watch Teague and Gavin play so well together. On Sunday we went to Sauk Rapids to help Amanda celebrate her sweet 16 birthday! I can't believe she is already 16. Such a sweet and fun young lady - our kids are lucky to have a big cousin like her! Of course Teague cried at "Manda's Happy Birthday" and even informed us ahead of time that he would be crying about it. Stinker. Tonight we are going to my sister's to FINALLY celebrate her bday (same day as Lola's) and mine together. Tomorrow my sister's family and my parents are leaving for Orlando for a week at Disney World. We sure will miss them, but are excited for them to have a fun trip. Here are a few updated pics... Have a nice, snowy week!

Lovin' on his sister before bedtime - always wanting to "Hold Yoya"!

Teague getting ready for his bath but just had to "Hold Yoya".

Look at little Lola's curly hair after her bath! So fun to have a child with hair!

Little Lola all ready for bed...

Look at little Lola's eyes when I make those "scary" sounds. Poor thing...

A little of this and a little of that...

Mommy kissin' Lola!

Mommy with Lola

Daddy snuggling with his two favorite kids!


Lola's first (non sponge) bath

Yep, still cries during the Happy Birthday song!

Papa with his 4 grandkids.

Oh it's been an interesting couple of days. It was Ryan's first day back to work yesterday and Teague had a 102.8 temp for the past two days. I took BOTH kids to the Dr office. Big deal, right?! Well not when both are not only crying, but SCREAMING and Teague refused to walk (who could blame him, he was tired and feeling really cruddy), so in I walked carrying the carseat and a 2 year old on the other hip. It was a total circus. And he didn't let up on his crying until home and in bed 1.5 hours later. We did find out that he has a double ear infection - which I will take. I was/am so worried about my kids catching the influenza. I was just hoping this winter sickness wouldn't start so early this year. But then again when they are forecasting snow for the weekend, what can you expect?! So after a good intro to life at home with 2 kids under 2, we are faring better today and Teague seems to be on the mend.

My mom is here helping me out over the next couple of days. I love having her here! We just lay around, she cooks and tomorrow we are shopping. This is the life....I need a full time cooking/cleaning person, but that may not be possible on one income I suppose! Until then I will just have to take my mom up on her visiting whenever possible - though I suppose the cooking for us will end eventually?!

Little Lola is growing leaps and bounds! She is starting to get so chubby and doesn't look like a scrawny little newborn any longer. I still can't believe that she is still smaller at 2.5 weeks than Teague was when he was born!! She is a blessing in our lives and we just LOVE spending time with both of our kids together.

Our weekend was nice. We took the kids to Oktoberfest in Freeport (it was cold - is that the reason for the ear infection?!), but Teague loved the petting zoo and jumping in the jumpy thing. They had good food - which is what I went for! On Sunday we went to church with my entire family and then to my parent's to celebrate "Papa's Happy Birthday". It was so nice to all be together again. Teague loved it because he got to go and see "the animals" like he does every time when he is at my parents. And he cried when we sang happy birthday - thought maybe he had outgrown that, maybe it was the fever spiking?! Regardless, happy "social security birthday" to my dad!

Have a good week!

Such a cute video of Teague....he is laughing at Ryan "pretending" to drop his cookie and then at the end he says to Lola "Hi....Good". I guess he is used to us asking him "HI TEAGUE, HOW ARE YOU?!"

Overflowing...

My heart is just overflowing with love for my new little family and life. I can't believe my good fortune to have such beautiful and healthy children and a wonderful husband. I am overflowing with emotion (or is it just hormone)?! Regardless, I count my blessings day and night.

I don't have many new pictures (2nd child syndrome already), but here is one of my favorite of Little Lola cuddling with Nana.

Lola had her 2 week check yesterday and has gained a pound since discharge from the hospital! Yay for mommy's nutritious milk! She is growing and amazing us daily.

Ryan is back to work on Monday and I think I will do okay. Teague still goes to Tina's part time, so we will see how our days go when it's me with the two kids alone. My mom is coming for two days next week to help me (and shop with me) and we have a play date with the Van Beck's already planned. I think I am going to like this stay at home mom business!! =)

This weekend is going to be cold (along with the homecoming game that we aren't attending any longer because of the cold), but we are going to try to make the Oktoberfest festivities in Freeport on Saturday and then celebrating "Papa's Happy Birthday" (as Teague's refers to it) on Sunday. He's talked about "Papa's Happy Birthday" all week. Precious.

Hope your week is good!

1 Week Old

Teague likes to lay next to Lola and then demands "GET ME ME AND GUK GUK"!

Teague feeding Lola a bottle, he was so excited!

Reading to my two favorite kiddos!

Teague feeding the reindeer at the Wildlife Zoo.


Teague and mommy by the ostrich.

Little Girl Lola snug as a bug in her carseat.

Teague holding Lola.

Wow, one week has already passed since our precious Lola made her big debut! It's went so fast and we are loving life as a Table of 4! Life is so good. I forgot to mention the significance of Lola's birthday - 1) she shares her birthday with my sister! and 2) she was born in the 9th month of the 9th year, 9 + 9 = 18 (9/18/09). This is the same type of equation as Teague's birthday: 7th month of the 7th year, 7 + 7 = 14 (7/14/07)!!! So cool. AND she, along with Teague, were both born on new moons. So the stars have all aligned just right! ha ha!

Teague is doing amazingly well with having a new sister. He loves her up and kisses her constantly saying "Love you Lola"! He now actually will say "Hold Lola" (or "Yoya" as she is affectionately called!) which has evolved from the first few days of him saying "HOLD IT!" while attempting to pull her out of our arms! It's the most precious thing ever. He likes his guk guk a bit too much, but that's something we can break in a few weeks again as I think he needs his comfort right now. Sleeping is going well, I haven't had the extreme exhaustion that I had with Teague and we have had many outtings too. We have had our newborn/family pics taken (hmmm, which was interesting with our non-cooperative 2 year old), been to Paynesville, been to Walmart, went to Hemker's Wildlife Zoo in Freeport, and on our way to St. Cloud today. We are just having so much fun. Ryan was off this week and will be next week as well, so that has helped having him around too.

All in all, we are doing well and adjusting so nicely. We hope you can visit and meet Lola soon, we think she's pretty amazing and we think you will think so too!!