Reinforcements- familial and otherwise

My mom arrived a week and a half ago, and we are so glad to have her with us. Matt and I were both exhausted after the first 2 weeks, and in great need of some reinforcements. Mimi has been amazing- cooking delicious and healthy meals and snacks, cleaning, taking Clara during the early morning hours, and playing with Lucy the rest of the time. I really can't express how grateful we are for her help and support (and to my dad for sparing her for this long).

We've also received some reinforcements in the realm of precipitation. We got almost 1 1/2 feet of snow last week, and had another few inches the other day. Below is Lucy getting a ride on the sled from Grandma before the big storm.

And here's Lucy with Matt, on the big snow day, about to head down the "snow mountain" (as Lucy calls it- it's from all the snow the plows push out of the parking lot, and is taller than me) in front of our house.

The rest of these pictures are in reverse order- the more recent ones are in the front, as I don't have energy to reorder them. You can see how Clara's plumping up when you compare the first and last pictures!

We love Clara's expressions- she has a very expressive face (as shown in the picture below). A few other traits we've noticed- she "talks" a lot (ie, makes non-crying sounds). And she's a very sound sleeper- we can move her into her car seat and buckle her in without waking her up. Sometimes it takes her 5-10 minutes to wake up. She'll stretch and then go back to sleep every few minutes, until hunger finally wins out. Then she cries with a very grumpy "I don't want to be awake" cry. So cute.

Our silly girl with pretzel eyes.

Clara's first week

It's been quite a week. Not much sleep, lots of diapers and spit-up, a tad bit of sibling drama, but overall, abundant joy.

We love our new little girl so much, and are so blessed to have her in our lives. She's a decent sleeper so far, and very mellow and snuggly. She only cries when she's hungry or tired, and goes to sleep pretty easily, though she prefers our arms to the bassinet. She's having longer alert times, which is fun.

Lucy is getting used to sharing me- an adjustment, for sure. We've been having special reading and play times together, which helps. Lucy does love helping with Clara- burping her, putting on her hat, helping with her bath, getting her a blanket. And she often gives her kisses and hugs.

Matt's been a hero- full time with Lucy, cooking and cleaning, grocery shopping, getting snacks for me, rocking Clara to sleep...the list goes on. We've also been blessed with lots of meals and help from family and friends- we feel very supported and loved.

Here are a few pictures from the week, and a long video of her alert time on Monday.

Clara Ann

We are so happy to share the wonderful news that Clara Ann was born on Monday, December 27th at 3:53 p.m., braving quite a blizzard! She has beautiful blue eyes, lots of dark brown hair, and long fingers and toes (just like her big sister), and she weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and measured 21 inches at birth. We’re all home now and enjoying bonding as a family. Lucy is delighted to have a new little sister, and loves helping with Clara as much as she can.

Clara means clear or bright; she is named after Matt’s great aunt, a lovely, spunky and wise woman who worked as an engineer in California starting back in the 1930s and who passed away a few years ago at the age of 101. Her middle name, Ann, means grace, and honors 4 special women in her life; Elizabeth’s mother (Ann Elizabeth), Matt’s mother (Judy Ann), Elizabeth’s grandmother (Ann) and Elizabeth (Elizabeth Ann).

We are so thankful to God for the gift of this precious little girl. Here are some pictures of our her and the whole family!

First snow!

We finally got our first snow of the season today. It was only a few inches, but we had lots of fun with it, shoveling, making snowballs and snow angels, cleaning off the car, etc.

Lucy made a gingerbread house at preschool last week. I think she had lots of fun decorating it.

And wrapping presents has been fun too.

Fun with color

We finally have some color up in the girls' room- hooray! Grandma Judy gave us some beautiful and fun curtains (if you look closely you can see the monkeys on them). I love how they brighten up the room; they are such a nice change from the beige curtains we had up before. In between them I've hung a picture of a strawberry from my grandmother's garden.

And here are the two bed/cribs. Our furniture is a bit of a pot pourri, but at least the changing table and the new crib match. :) In the middle is our "Guess how much I love you" picture. I'm still thinking of ideas for what to hang on the walls over their two beds.


And now for some random pictures from the week. Lucy rolled herself up in the yoga mat this morning.

We've been doing some painting this week for homemade Christmas presents. Lucy gets very absorbed and is quite thorough!

A picture of me and kernel. We're counting down the days now, and are very excited! Thankfully, I'm still feeling pretty comfortable, aside from being tired.

In other color news- I'm participating in a "color week" this week, which a friend has put together. Each day there is a different color that you take and post pictures of. You can check out my posts at http://www.leafbyelizabeth.blogspot.com/.

Advent anticipations

I've always enjoyed the season of Advent; our family had a number of traditions which make it a special and meaningful time. It's been so fun passing these along to Lucy and creating new ones as well.

Every morning we hang an ornament on the advent calendar that my grandmother (on my dad's side) made. We also hang up an angel (in the picture Lucy is choosing one from the angel book). Lucy usually asks me at least 3-4 times throughout the day if we can hang another ornament and angel. So we're definitely getting practice with anticipation and delayed gratification!


After dinner we have advent time with our advent wreath. We light the candles (adding one each week), and read a bible story, sing a hymn and pray. We're keeping it simple for Lucy, so the first week we sang "Angels we have heard on high" each night. This week it's "O come all ye faithful". She looks forward to this time each day, and is really catching on to the songs (it helps that the second half of each of them is repeated words).


Getting and decorating the Christmas tree was a real highlight. Lucy hung up at least half of the ornaments (and we have a lot of them!).

Here is Matt lifting Lucy up to put the angel on the top. It almost looks like she's the angel. :)

And the fully decorated tree. I haven't found a way to capture on camera how beautiful it is- the rich green needles, glowing lights and colorful ornaments. It's a strange tradition, when you think of it, bringing a big tree inside. But it's such a deeply ingrained part of celebrating the holiday for me, that looking at the tree fills me with warm fuzzies.

It's interesting to be anticipating both Christmas and the arrival of kernel (hopefully the former will come before the latter!). We sorted through the baby clothes recently and Lucy has been picking out outfits for baby. She chose tights, a dress and a hat, and then asked where the baby's underwear was. When we're at a store she always wants to get a present for kernel. Earlier this week she picked out a little koala bear (thankfully on sale for just 2$). It reminds me of the stuffed owl that I got for my sister when she was born.

Thanksgiving Feasts

We had 2 wonderful Thanksgiving celebrations; we hosted my grandparents on Thursday, and then we gathered with the extended family at their place on Saturday. My grandparents split the cooking with us, and Grandma and I agreed that it worked out perfectly- neither of us felt stressed or overwhelmed that day!

Here Lucy is helping me assemble baked carrots, one of Grandma's recipes that we love to make.



Earlier in the day we headed out for a walk. It was a bit chilly, but nice to get some exercise before the big meal.

These red berry bushes are in front of our house- I love how bright and cheerful they are.

And here we are gathered together. We are so blessed to live close to my grandparents and to be able to see them so often.

Over the weekend we set up the crib for baby kernel. She will probably be in our room in a bassinette for the first few months, but I knew it would be easier to set it up now with just a toddler, as compared to with a toddler and newborn! We also needed to rearrange the furniture and wanted to give Lucy time to get adjusted to it. It feels good to have that done, and I really like the way the room looks. Once we get some art on the walls I'll take a picture to post.

I also started getting out some baby stuff- Lucy had fun pretending to feed her dolls on the boppy pillow, and climbing into the baby's carseat. She picked out a toy rattle for the baby at the store today, and wanted to get some shoes for the baby too. She definitely likes getting things for the baby, and I think will be excited to help pick out clothes, get diapers, etc. It's all starting to feel much more real, for all of us- just about a month to go!