Proud Big Brothers

First Bath

Gracies's cord stump fell off last week. I've just now gotten around to getting her baby tub out of the garage and cleaning it up. I thought for sure she'd like bathing in the tub much more than the sponge baths she's been getting. Maybe she did like it a bit better, but not much! And, apparently, bathing is such a big event in our house, all 5 of us were crowded into our little hall bath for Gracie's special day!

Holiday Baking

If you wanna call it that. I cheated this year and bought prebaked gingerbread cookies. I still had to mix up the frosting, though, does that count?! There's no telling what they taste like-Canaan coughed on his, Matty sneezed on his, and then used the same spreader he licked to spread more icing on his cookies. The boys enjoyed themselves, and that's really the point. Well, that and now they have 8 gingerbread cookies to eat all by themselves!

2 Weeks Old

At her 2 week check-up, Gracie weighed in at 7 lbs, 5 oz! She gained nearly a pound in just 7 days! She's still a tiny little peanut, in the 10th percentile for both height and weight. She's awake a little more during the day and is still a happy and content baby so long as she's fed and her bottom is clean. And the novelty of a new sister still hasn't worn off the boys, which could be due in part to the fact we are limiting their contact with her since they both have been sick recently.

9 Days Old

No, not peas porridge hot, it's Gracie! She had her "post-nursery" check-up today. She weighed in at 6 lbs, 6 oz today. She gained back all the weight she lost in the hospital, plus a couple more ounces. They said she looks great. They will do an ultrasound in a couple weeks on her hips because she was breech, but the doc said he didn't expect any findings from it, but it's just a precaution.

New swing

Gracie loves the swing Aunt Nancy and Uncle Brad gave her. Mommy & Daddy love that it plugs in!! Yeah! No more replacing 4 D batteries in the middle of the night! Actually, we haven't really had to use the swing to soothe a fussy baby like we did with the boys. She likes to sit in her swing and look at the Christmas tree, and sometimes we put her in there to let her sleep near the rest of the family while we are in the kitchen or living room.

Ice Cream Man!!

The boys have been keeping busy being excellent, caring big brothers. Here, they are taking a break from holding and kissing Gracie and fetching diapers and burp cloths for Mom when they heard the siren song of the ice cream man! Canaan raided his piggy bank for the last of his report card money to buy ice cream to share with Matty.

First sponge bath

Or, baby torture. Like any other baby, Gracie didn't care for her first sponge bath. We both look forward to the umbilical stump falling off so she can soak in the tub properly. She sure did smell sweet afterwards, though!

More pics

New Family Photos

Gracie's Arrival

On Saturday, November 15, I attended the Fayetteville Cares Boots & Booties World's Largest Military Baby Shower. As it ended, I began to have painful contractions. Nothing terribly new; I've been having contractions off and on since November 4. I headed for home, but remembered we were out of coffee and trash bags and only had a bit of milk left so I would have to stop by the commissary. We had dinner at our neighbor's house across the street and the contractions continued to be painful and got closer together. Our neighbors generously volunteered to watch the boys for us as we headed to the hospital. They put me in triage and checked me after an hour and said I was still only 1 cm dilated but they wanted to keep me and recheck me due to my pain level and description of the contractions. After 2 hours, I'd made progress so they decided to go ahead with the surgery a few days early. The surgery went very well. Graceanne Gabriella was born at 2:35 am on November 16, 2008. She weighed 6 lbs, 4.5 oz and was about 19" long.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Canaan was doing his homework Thursday night, practicing writing his "T" words for the week. Matty can sometimes be a handful while Canaan is doing homework. So, I looked through our workbooks and found a page Matty could easily do and handed him a pencil and told him to circle the smallest picture in each row. "OK," he said as he proceeded to circle nearly every picture on the page! OK, maybe we need to work on it a bit more. But, he was so proud to be sitting next to Canaan doing his own "homework" I had to snap a couple pictures to share.

Destructo-Boy in all his glory!

That's a sock puppet on his hand.

First Stripe

Messy Matty

I thought I would take advantage of Dora's captivating hold over Matthew and cast my absentee ballot this afternoon. I appreciated the quiet while I tried to look up names and issues that haven't been blaring at me on local TV for the last several months. That is, until I was finished and walked in to the living room to find a bag of Doritos on the coffee table and chips all over the carpet I just vacuumed last night. And then into the kitchen to find a string of paper towels lying on the floor to mop up what I thought was water spilled in front of the open pantry doors. Closer inspection revealed it was not water, but grease! He was spraying my non-stick cooking spray all over the floor! The dining room didn't escape either. It was covered in Pixie Stick dust deemed too sour to consume. And a quick peek at his favorite hiding space, behind the couch mom is no longer capable of squeezing her 8-months-pregnant body behind, told me where the chocolate ring around his mouth came from--the last of the Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts. Now, lest you think I don't feed my child or that my pantry is stocked only with processed and sugary foods, I do have to say in my defense there are apples and carrots and grapes he could also have chosen to make messes with, but, well, they just aren't as fun to crumble up, dump out, or squish, and they certainly don't come in a really cool spray can. However, Mom is now prepared for the next election!

Li'l Dragons Tournament

Canaan was so excited for this tournament; he's been asking about it for weeks and this morning he woke up asking what time we could leave. He did really well. They did relay races like they've practiced at his weekly classes. He was paired up with two other kids to do flag sparring. He was disappointed when they practiced in class and he didn't win, but he won all 4 matches today. Then they moved to the battle stick sparring and he was paired up with a much taller boy that looked like he was using Canaan to play Whack-A-Mole! At the end, his class was awarded certificates for participation with both a ribbon and a medal attached and a waist-high trophy. The smile on his face at the end made it all worth it.

First Stripe

I've been trying for nearly a week to upload this video to Blogger and I finally did it! Anyway, Canaan was so excited to do his test he exaggerated his movements and nearly knocked himself over! But he passed the test and will get his stripe and certificate on Monday.

Nesting

I am 32 weeks and 4 days pregnant today. I started thinking maybe I should get a bit organized for Gracie's arrival. I've washed and put away the clothes my friends were so gracious to pass along to me, as well as the things I've saved from Canaan and Matty's baby days. But all of her new things were still hanging in the closet with the tags still attached. So yesterday I managed to cut all the tags off, remove every bit of plastic stapling, throw out all the cardboard molding and packaging and got the clothes into the wash. I dried them first thing this morning and managed to piece back every outfit as it ought to be. I still haven't gotten around to putting them all away yet and some pieces were still stacked on the couch when Canaan got home from school today, which turned out to be a good thing. If I had I might not have overheard this conversation between my boys:

Canaan: Matty, look! Look at Gracie's teensy-weensy, tiny little socks! Look at how tiny her feet are going to be!

Matty: Yeah! Just wike da Itsy Bitsy Spider!

What insight! Canaan knows she's going to be much smaller than they are. And Matty, though he's never been pregnant, somehow knows I suspect Grace might actually have eight legs, despite ultrasound evidence to the contrary!

Potty Power!

We've been hoping to interest Matthew in potty training. I'm pretty sure he's just not ready. He asked for underwear when I took Canaan back-to-school shopping. I said I'd be happy to, if he would stop wearing diapers and wear the underwear. He said, "Nevermind. I wike diapers." O-K. How do you argue that? We have a DVD titled "Potty Power." I put it on for him the other day and he ran away crying because he didn't want to watch it! Now Canaan requests it and Matty will watch it with him and sing, "I'm Proud to Wear My Underwear." But when Canaan yells, "Who has potty power?" Matty answers with a resounding, "NOT ME!" He did finally decide to give the underwear a try though...

It's here...

The dreaded school fundraiser!

The only people we know here are our neighbors. Their kids go to the same school, so I can't solicit them. So, instead I'm going to my blog readers, my friends and family.

For anyone interested, the school fundraiser is through Reader's Digest. Go to www.qsp.com to browse their gift and magazine selections. Click the Supporter's link and enter 710317128 as the school/organization number. You will need Canaan's ID to give credit to Canaan and his school at checkout. Enter EGG1 as his code.

This fundraiser ends October 6.

Thanks for looking!

The man in white

Canaan is continuing to do well in karate. He got his gi last week and was so excited and proud to wear it today. They didn't do any sparring or grappling today, just worked on their routines and she put them through a pretty rigorous workout. I was honestly surprised Canaan had the energy to run around outside after dinner tonight and then had difficulty falling asleep at bedtime! I got tired just watching them! They will be tested again on their routines on Wednesday and the kids that are showing improvement and learning the routines will be rewarded with a chance to grapple or spar. I hope the sparring gear we ordered last week arrives in time for him to spar again. At the end of class, the instructor mentioned a tournament next month and Canaan couldn't even wait for her to end the class before he turned and announced in a stage whisper, "Mommy! Can you sign me up? Can I do the tournament?" Unfortunately for him, I think he'll probably need more than 6 weeks of classes to be ready for his first tournament and I told him we will try to make the next one. The last video here is how Matty spends Canaan's karate classes. At least until his tumbling class starts next month.