The Super Bowl

Graham walked into the kitchen where I was working on Sunday night. "Are you watching the Super Bowl with Daddy?" I asked. "Can you say Super Bowl?" (He couldn't.) I turned back to the counter, then saw him carry something back into the living room with Will:



I guess he thought Will's bowl wasn't super enough.

That night at 1:42am, Baby C threw a party. He was squealing and laughing and bouncing with someone--when I went in, I found out that it was the animals on his sheets. He abandoned his friends and went back to sleep when I gave him his pacifier.

I should not complain about snow because ours isn't much compared to some parts of the country. It does make birdwatching more fun, though. Cardinals have been to our feeder more in the past few days than they have all season:

Blind Cave Fish

Will, Graham, and I were eating breakfast together on Saturday morning while watching a DVD about Missouri's outdoors (thanks, Aunt Melba & Uncle Jim!). There were some divers exploring a spring that had formed underwater caves, and one of the divers commented that they even saw some blind cave fish.

"You know how you can tell that a fish is blind?" Will asked.

I sat and thought for a moment. Was it something to do with their eyes? Were they white because it was so dark that it didn't matter what color they were? Will knows a lot about fish and he had seen the DVD before...

"I don't know," I replied.

"They have a little stick."

Dancing on the Ottoman

Graham is turning into quite the ham lately. We're not sure if he's going to be the class clown or the class bully. Here's a sample of some of the things that have happened over the past few weeks:

- I was eating breakfast and he started bringing me pretzels, which I realized was his snack from the night before. He had hidden them in the watering can from the basement.

- In the mornings while Will and I are getting ready for the day, he likes to lay in our bed and read the newspaper. His other favorites lately are the phone book and thesaurus.

- He insists on using binoculars to watch birds that are 10 feet away from the window. I think it's because half the time he looks through the wrong end, so they're already very far away...

- I went to the basement to get our roasting pan and found 2 horses, a golf ball, and a baseball inside, compliments of Graham.

- He has always liked to dance with his mailbox. Lately, he has taken to dancing with it on the ottoman.



This is how he goes down the stairs. Usually it's about twice as fast, but of course he wouldn't do that for the camera:



In other news, Baby C has learned his first word (if you can call it that): uh-oh. He likes to say it when people drop things, so he gets to use it a lot in our household.

Gabriella is finally getting over her cold. She likes to smile and talk to her crib bumper and the letters of her name on the wall.



I think Will had a good birthday on Tuesday, minus the hour he spent sitting in the tire place because he had a flat at work. Otherwise, he said it was very relaxing.

Gabriella

We have been enjoying Gabriella so much. Thank you to everyone who prayed for her and supported us throughout the summer and fall... She has been so worth it!

She is such a happy baby. Here are a few shots of her right after eating, when she loves to talk and smile at us.




Her aunt Kim made her a very nice Christmas gift, a wall hanging with a verse that includes her middle name.



The verse reads:

Show me the path where I should walk, O Lord;
Point out the right road for me to follow.
Lead me by Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God who saves me.
All day long I put my hope in You.
Psalms 25:4-5

That's our prayer for all of our kids, and it's great to have such a visible reminder.

Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas! It was fun to celebrate with a child who was old enough to unwrap presents instead of simply eating the paper or playing with the boxes. (That's fun too, don't get me wrong, but personally I like to see them play with the toys.)

We have had snow a few times here, and Graham has enjoyed going out to play with Daddy while the rest of us stay warm inside. Here's Will's latest invention:



Yes, Will is on the other end of that rope. He pulled him around around for an hour the other day and came in quite exhausted.

My brother and sister-in-law came down the week of Christmas and we had a full schedule: decorating gingerbread houses, shopping, and going to the zoo to look at the lights. It was COLD, but totally worth it to see Graham's eyes light up while he rode in on my brother's shoulders.

Christmas morning was fun. Our best present from the kids was sleeping in until 7:00am, which they hadn't done in quite awhile. My mom & dad weren't able to make it over, so we set up the computer in the family room and Skyped with them so they could see the kids. Gabriella slept through everything, and Baby C ate the aforementioned wrapping paper before getting totally overwhelmed and requiring an early nap. Graham, however, had a ball. Here he is with his new Aquadoodle mat:



My first attempt at a Christmas dinner (without Mom's supervision) went pretty well with lots of help from everybody else, and we were able to Skype with Will's family that afternoon. All in all, it was a very good day.

We got to go to two local science centers with our friends Matt & Leigh Ann, Dave & Charlene, and Adam & Jayme. The kids had a ball and enjoyed playing with Kaelyn and Evie. Or at least they enjoyed their toys. :)

Will's brother Joe and his family came over on New Year's and we met them at the zoo for another cold trip. I think their boys enjoyed it, though. Here are Graham, Nathan, and Isaac riding a wooden alligator:



More of Will's family came down the next day and we had another giant round of present-opening (same results from Gabriella and Baby C). We figured they opened presents on at least 8 different days. We got to go to church as an entire family for the first time since Gabriella was born. I say "go to" because that's about all we were able to do together--Graham and Gabriella didn't make it past the song service. It was nice to be together in spirit.

We're looking forward to some quieter evenings and getting the house back in order (mostly finding places for all the new toys). Will was rummaging through the medicine cabinet last night and announced that he felt like organizing the entire house. I made a comment about how that's what everyone wants to do in January and all the organization stuff is on sale right now. Then he decided not to do it because he didn't want to be like everyone else. So close.

All three kids are sick right now, but hopefully we are pulling out of it. Gabriella is doing well and usually only wakes up once at night. She has discovered her fist and makes the same Superman pose that Graham used to do. I wonder if it's genetic.

Updates

Things have been rather busy around here. Make that hectic. We have found that 3 babies are a lot harder to raise than 2, now that we're outnumbered. Gone are the days when one of us can entertain Graham while the other plays with Baby C or works around the house. I am thankful for the hour or so of free time during naptime every day.

Graham is... busy. I came inside from getting the mail today and noticed that Baby C's mouth looked full. I fished out 3 (count them, 3) fruit snacks from his cheeks, which Graham had forcibly shared with him. He gets into the cabinet and bites holes in all of the granola bar wrappers. He dumped water all over our Christmas cards one afternoon, so if yours is a little wavy, you'll understand why. He insists on replacing the angel on top of the manger scene--either with the innkeeper's wife or a camel. Basically, he requires a lot of supervision and patience, which is sometimes in short supply. :) Here he is helping me make sugar cookies. And yes, the cookie barn plays "Green Acres".



...and after eating one.



Baby C finally learned to crawl! It took quite a while, but he is a lot faster now. It was much easier when he would stay in one place, but I guess that's always the case.

Gabriella is a good little baby and is sleeping well at night. When she cries, she has the biggest lip pout I have ever seen. Right now, it makes my heart melt, but someday I will tell her to tuck it back in.

Growing Up Too Fast.