Tricycle!

Over a year ago, I found a Mizzou tricycle at a consignment sale that looked brand new, and snatched it up. It sat in the basement until this past summer, when it seemed that Joseph was big enough to ride it. His legs could reach the pedals, but he wasn't coordinated enough to push them, and just got really frustrated. So I stuck it back in the basement, figuring we'd pull it out again in the spring. While we were cleaning up in the basement a few weeks ago, Joseph came down with us, saw the "bicycle" and hopped on. Imagine our surprise when he was actually able to pedal a bit!

He was so excited, and the weather wasn't too bad, so Joe took Joseph down to the school to play and practice. 

 Check out that determination! I was running Christmas errands with Madeline, but Joe said Joseph did great, pedaling forward (and backward) a few times, before realizing he wanted to go play on the playground and abandoned the trike.

The teachers must have forgotten to put the ball back, and it appears Joseph had lots of fun playing with a toy that's usually not out on weekends!

It kills me how big he looks (and is!), especially after posting pictures of Madeline. He's growing up so fast!

Madeline's 3 month pictures

Once again, I'm really late posting these, but here are Madeline's 3 month photos, that were taken on December 9th. 

At 3 months, Madeline weighed 14 lbs (unofficially) and is still growing like a weed. She's generally a very happy, smiley baby while awake (which is often...), generally calm and taking everything in, but not afraid to tell us when she's not happy either. She enjoys spending more time in the swing, but still doesn't sleep in it very often. She's also enjoying the fisher price seahorse a lot more, and will generally calm right down and frequently go to sleep when it's on. Speaking of sleep, well, she's still very inconsistent in her sleep patterns. She still loves to be swaddled in the sleep sack, even though she has a tendency to fight the swaddle at first. She generally takes 4 naps a day, starting about an hour after waking for the day, and 3 of the 4 are generally only 45 minutes to an hour. She's been going to bed about the same time as Joseph, so generally between 8 and 9 pm. Since turning 3 months old, she's slept from 8 or 9 until 5ish about 1/3 of the time, waking only to eat and then going back to sleep for another 3 hours. If she gets off schedule during the day, though, we all suffer at night. Sometimes it means an extra 3 am wake up, other times, like the last two nights, she's up every two hours from midnight till 8 am. Ugh.

She's still not rolling over, but she's getting closer. She also kicks like crazy at things, more so than batting at them with her arms. She seems to notice she has feet, but hasn't made any attempt yet to grab at them. She'll just stare at them so intently she goes cross-eyed! She also loves chewing on her fingers, and seems to be sucking on the first few fingers on each hand. She gave herself a bad hickey of sorts on one of her index fingers from sucking so hard!

Joseph loves playing with her, and we are having more and more moments where they will sit and look at each other. Joseph will start to make goofy noises which generally cracks Madeline up. Once she starts giggling at him, he laughs too. It's really sweet. Other than the sleep issue, she's really a great baby. And I know I was spoiled with a baby who started sleeping 10-11 hours consistently at 3.5 months. It's just so hard not to compare them!

Breakfast with Santa and Madeline's baptism

During the weekend of December 8-9, my family headed into town for Madeline's baptism. My parents came up Friday night, and thus were able to attend the annual Breakfast with Santa that is the major fundraiser at Joseph's school each year. 

We were a little late to the breakfast, so we had to eat quickly in order to make it through the activity stations and get our pictures taken with Santa. Joseph was definitely hungry that morning, as he plowed through his first plate of pancakes and was halfway through his second before I even got a chance to start eating! I think he ended up devouring 5 pancakes before giving up.

Mmmm!

Madeline didn't get to enjoy any pancakes, but she was a super good sport anyway. 

Joseph has been telling everyone that he wants a fire engine for Christmas. And not just any (because he already has a fire engine for his train table, one in his fish tank a small, hand sized one and a rescue vehicle one), but a "this big" (arms way outstretched) fire engine. Hopefully Santa's sleigh can handle such a big truck!

Oh, and what does Maddie want? He had to stop and think for a minute, pondering that Madeline would actually even want anything. His final answer? A fire engine and a helicopter. Suspicious choices for a 3 month old girl, don't you think? :)

At least he's still willing to share the love and give her plenty of kisses in front of Santa.

No screaming kids this year! While he wasn't really sure what to make of Santa by himself at first, he cuddled up to the big man after a few minutes and I even managed to capture a few cute smiles.

Later in the day Ashley, Mikael, Mason and Jen came into town. Papa started giving Mason pony rides, and Joseph decided to hop on. The boys definitely were having a blast playing together! I think this was the first time Joseph realized that Mason might soon be old enough to play with him.

On Sunday, December 9th, we all gathered at our church, Old Mission UMC, to have Madeline baptized. Jill and Gary joined us, along with Kyle's parents, Deb and Paul Christiansen.

Madeline was asleep when we arrived, took in the music for a bit, and then we started to get her dressed - my mom still has the baptism gown my sisters and I all wore, so we opted to dress her in it, instead of the gown Joseph wore. Ours is definitely more "girly," with some pink flowers and piping on the dress.

She seemed like she was happy to participate, until we told her she'd be getting wet...

In reality, she did fantastic. I knew there'd be a good chance she'd be getting hungry while at church, but she stayed very calm throughout the baptism.

Ashley and Mikael were there with us, as Madeline's godparents.

We had everyone over after church for a little lunch and to visit, and my parents picked this cake up, as I had run out of time to order one.

Joseph was quite excited about the prospects of eating cake, and managed to sneak some licks of frosting before he got his own piece.

It was a great weekend, and we were glad to be able to celebrate Madeline's baptism with so many family members!

First weekend in December visit from the Olsons

Since returning from Detroit, Joseph and I got colds that we are still trying to shake. Luckily Madeline managed to only get a small cold that lasted a few days, and Joe hasn't been hit at all. We had planned on watching Mason when Ashley and Mikael were in town the first weekend of December, but since both Joseph and I were not feeling well, the visit was cut a bit short.

First, just a few pictures of Maddie hanging out in the high chair. She really seems to enjoy this vantage point when I'm cooking and/or while Joseph is eating at the table. Lately she's starting to pay more attention to us while we're eating, so I think she's going to be ready to start cereal very soon!

As a neglected second kid, Madeline doesn't get to spend too much time on the playmat or on the floor doing tummy time. Thus, she still hasn't rolled over on her own yet (if she's on our bed she flips over almost instantly since she gets a little help from the "ruts" in the mattress...). When Ashley and Mikael were visiting, they pulled out the playmat constantly for Mason, and it made me realize I need to do a much better job of getting Maddie on it daily! It's just a bit challenging between watching Molly and, more importantly, Joseph, and trying to keep the house running.

Mikael gave the kids pony rides, which Madeline loved!

Joseph showing off his giant stocking that Santa gets to fill! My mom is still in the process of making one for Madeline, since she had two grandkids show up in the same year. So next Christmas we'll have the two massive stockings flanking Joe and my more modest sized ones!

Ashley's great at trying to get pictures of all three kids whenever they are together. Usually Mason is super smiley, but during this visit he was much more contemplative and serious. I love that Madeline was the one cracking grins during these photos!

For reference, Madeline was 12 weeks old here, and Mason was 22 weeks old. 

Last day in Detroit

WARNING: There are lots of great pictures of some seriously cute kids ahead. All credit for the photos goes to Lisa Christensen, and I guess Joe and I will split the credit for making beautiful babies :)

On our last morning in Detroit, we opted to have Lisa take some pictures of each of the kids, and a few family shots. The weather looked like it wasn't going to cooperate and was rather cold, but the sun came out for a bit and Joseph and Joe had fun playing around outside. These are some of our favorites, but there were lots of other great shots too. We can't thank Lisa enough for always being so agreeable to taking family photos for us!

And a few unedited ones, that we weren't going to use for possible Christmas card pictures, but I think are fun anyway (and want to make sure they make it into the blog book!)

I love that Lisa captured these next two - she was apparently bribing Joseph with candy, and he ended up looking like a baby bird waiting to be fed...

And the current version of Joseph's "stinky face", which has definitely evolved over the years. Now that he can vocalize when he's not happy with us, he certainly chooses to do so, but every so often this face pops out instead when he's at a loss for words.

We had a lot of fun visiting with everyone. While there's always lots of anticipated chaos, what with so many little kids and babies, I know it'll be even more fun someday when we are all finished having babies and the kids have grown up enough to play and entertain themselves. Joseph has loved getting to visit with his cousins so much this year, and talks about playing with them constantly. It's too bad that no one lives close enough for more frequent visits! I'm hoping in 2013 that we can travel for long weekends or during the week and visit Lisa and Linda's families more, especially now that Joseph is old enough to enjoy and appreciate the visits with his family.