Showing posts with label Birthdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Birthdays. Show all posts

Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Half Birthday

We celebrated Lauren's half birthday today.  (We celebrated half birthdays for all of our kids... I blogged about Ian's & Aaron's too. <--ok maybe I didn't blog about Aaron's, but we definitely celebrated it. There's a picture somewhere!)

So today I made a half birthday cake for Lauren--white cake with my mom's butter frosting. YUM. Grandma and Grandpa Spaceship just happened to come over this afternoon and we had Lasagna for dinner.

We also had a sunny day today!  It was only a high of 11 today, but it was sunny! We took pictures of Lauren at her 6 month mark.

She's rolling everywhere. She can get up on her hands and her knees, but not both at the same time. She's scooting all over the house. She can maneuver herself from one side of the room to the other and pick up even the tiniest little shneebly of crayon paper and put it in her mouth.

She screeches and squawks like neither of the boys ever did. She loves pears, peaches, peas, green beans, and bananas. She does not love baby cereal of any kind. She screams at the table if we don't feed her as fast as she thinks we should. She can pick up puffs and put them in her own mouth (and eat them.) She can also eat single-grain oat cereal... aka organic (not general mills brand) cheerios if we break them into little pieces. We don't focus on food and we're not pushing her, but she wants to eat when we're sitting at the dinner table. If we don't offer her something to eat like a big girl, she gets really mad. She is breastfed and will not even entertain the idea of a bottle. (Neither would Aaron... until he was about 9 months old and he saw big brother drinking from a sippy cup... Aaron went straight to a sippy cup and never did bottles at all.)

Lauren's favorite place is in the Ergo carrier on my belly. She still hates the car. She sleeps in her crib for her naps and for the first stretch of the night (from bedtime until about 2am). She will suck on a binky, but really could take it or leave it.

She doesn't babble a whole lot, but blows a lot of raspberries. She enjoys being talked to, sung to, rapped to, and to play patty-cake. She adores her brothers (who adore her right back) and she thinks daddy is pretty cool too.

She's a delight! A very pleasant baby. I love my boys, but gosh, I love my girl! She's so special. So sweet. So snuggly. She's just fabulous.

I can't believe it's been a half a year already. By the time I publish this, she'll be closer to a year old than to a newborn. How is that possible? Wasn't it just yesterday that we first saw her little bean shape wiggling on the ultrasound monitor? Now she's looking at me with those big eyes, yelling at me to shovel food faster, and going all over the living room. Unreal.









Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Thursday, October 21, 2010

2 year Photo Shoot & 3 Month Photo Shoot

Tomorrow, Aaron will be TWO years old! (Unbelievable.)  But even harder to accept is Lauren will be 3 months old tomorrow. Here are some photos I took this morning.  (Ian was at school or he's be in them too, of course, he's 3 1/2 years old now.)  By the way, getting a 2 year old to sit still & smile is... hard.












Sunday, July 25, 2010

We Need A New Header

Lauren Marie Vandervort officially became part of the family on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 8:44pm. 

She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 1/4 inches long. 





She currently has a little dark brown hair and dark blue eyes.  Long fingers & feet, and is just very petite! (Aaron was a full pound lighter ans an inch shorter, but Lauren seems smaller to me.)


She's doing all the little things newborns do... squeaky noises, some crying, some "gas smiles," etc.  She is not lacking in attention... we've hardly put her down since she arrived.  She's just so precious and we know all too well now that these sweet moments are fleeting.  Our 3 year old and 21 month old "babies" are a constant reminder that we have to savor every moment.  I reminded myself out loud at 5:30 this morning while the rest of the house was sleeping... even this icky meconium diaper is something to cherish.  I may not ever change another meconium diaper.  Enjoy this.  Delight in her.








Big Brothers are doing ok with the transition.  There have been some tears at times when Ian & Aaron would like to have mommy do something, but I simply can't. (Carry them to their beds or play wrestlemania...)  Ian has a deep interest in his sister.  Counting her toes, watching diaper changes, noticing her little noises, touching her hair, learning about umbilical cords (and belly buttons.)  Aaron is just quietly enjoying being part of this adventure.  Offering kisses and hugs and pats on the back "to help with burping."  It is a truly lovely scene, even though it is chaos, watching my little family turn to a bigger family, and my children loving each other.  I should mention that Ian is showing some signs of stress right now and has been having more tantrums, but we all have to remind ourselves of the huge change we are going through and that everyone needs a little extra slack.  I don't think it is as bad as it could be, and we are thankful for that. 




I'm doing well.  The labor and delivery of #3 was the easiest yet.  It was not easy, but it was nothing compared to Ian's traumatic birthday.  This time, I labored about 6 hours (2 of which were spent doing some serious Lamaze-ish breathing techniques and sweating through the thick of things... the anesthesiologists were backlogged & I had to wait for 1.5 hours for my epidural... after the contractions got bad enough to ask for one.  Yipes!)  Lauren was born after practically no pushing at all, in a flurry of activity, we were all surprised how quickly it happened in the final minutes.  8 minutes from the time the doctor entered the delivery room until she was out and crying.


So here we are.  A family of five.  We'll try to get a family picture soon. 

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Turning 3

Friday morning while Grandma & Papa Miller were still here, we lit Ian's candle and sang to him again. Friday eveningwe had dinner issues due to a freak storm with 80 mph winds that passed though... we were going to go to CiCi's Pizza, but the power was out. We ended up going to Red Robin. Ian enjoyed his birthday immensely!







^waiting for our table


^playing with Buzz Lightyear


^The look on his face while the servers were singing to him was priceless!

Friday, April 16, 2010

3










The weather is supposed to be rainy today and cold this weekend (like it always is on Ian's birthday it seems) so we decided last night was a better night to give him his "big" gift and have cupcakes. Roger was having some of his friends over to play a game and grandma and papa happened to be here. We had an impromptu birthday party! Ian's pirate party is coming up next weekend, but for his "official" birthday we will go to CiCi's Pizza (just the 4 of us tonight) and maybe get another small gift... new jammies or maybe a DVD.

Happy Birthday, Ian! I can't believe you're three already!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Singing Happy Birthday to Daddy




There are 30 dots on the cake. And 6 dots on each of the 5 cupcakes. Aren't I creative!



Happy Birthday Roger!


We love you! (Even if you're so old! :-))

Happy Birthday to an amazing daddy!
Happy Birthday to my best friend!
Happy Birthday to an incredibly smart, funny, tough, loving man!
Happy Birthday!