ZZZZZ's

Maggie slept through the night last night. I put her down at 10:30 and she woke up at 7 this morning. Of course I still didn't get to bed until midnight - it is too tempting to be productive when both kids are asleep and I still have some energy left. However, after sleeping uninterrupted for 7 hours, I felt amazingly rested this morning.
I am a realist and certainly don't expect this to be the norm yet, but let me just say that sleep like that is wonderful.

Sayings

Here's what Tjabe is saying lately.
"Trust me." (used accurately)
"Oh my goodness!"
"I have a question for you." (even when he doesn't, but just wants your attention)

Look Who's Three!

Tjabe actually turned three Sunday but we celebrated today because our schedule was a little more flexible. We started the day with our weekly adjustments at the chiropractor, then took Tjabe to Barnes and Noble where he played with the Thomas train set and got to buy Harold the Helicopter for his own train set. Then we went to the wine store to buy some wine for our gathering tonight. Then we took Tjabe to the library where we got some fun books to read. Then it was home for a delicious lunch of boxed macaroni and cheese and an avocado (one of his favorite meals), opening his presents (he got spoiled some more, of course), playing with presents for a little while, and a nap. We had some friends over for homemade pizza and cake, including Tjabe's good friend Austin, and they had a blast playing together all night while us adults drank the wine we bought. Tjabe opened his remaining few gifts and went to bed after nine, more than an hour and a half past his bedtime. It was a good day for everyone. Here are pictures.

The gift from Molly, Mike and Micaiah: A Nerf dart set complete with protective eyewear and a target vest. You can see I've already been shot multiple times, while Tjabe remains uninjured.

Bond. James Bond.


Ridding the world of evil one foam-and-velcro dart at a time. With the glasses on backwards.

Ah, I'm hit!

Here is the cake I made. I got the pattern from another blog on the internet and attempted to copy it with a few variations, the big one being I used buttercream frosting instead of Fondit (sp?), mainly because I have heard that Fondit doesn't taste good and is expensive. Not sure if either of those are true, but they also didn't sell it at the grocery store I went to and I didn't want to make another stop. I consider the cake a success in that it somewhat resembles Thomas and Tjabe recognized it as Thomas, plus he could read his name on it. Be glad that you couldn't read my mind late last night as I was trying to frost the thing, though. Some of the smaller pieces turned to crumbs the second I applied frosting (yes, I froze the cake first - it didn't help). This leads to another variation - the removal of some smaller detail pieces. Oh well, it was cute and we all enjoyed having blue and black tongues when it was over.

Tjabe, Austin, the cake, and an empty bottle of wine

"Mmm, that looks good."
(Actually, it was.)

Christmas Pictures Galore

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We did...

The kiddos Sunday before Christmas

Maggie's dress and sparkly red tights

Tjabe's new Thomas robe and pj's, Christmas Eve

Maggie's new bracelet - so cute!

Tjabe's new John Deere hat - the winter version

Tjabe opening his train track set

Tjabe, after playing all morning and afternoon, right through his nap. He loves his trains.

Maggie's Christmas dress and elf/Mary Jane tights- I love this!

Same thing about 5 seconds later

The Gift

Below is Tjabe opening the train track set he got for Christmas. The computer microphone is about ten feet away from him so I'll interpret. He's opening the gift and as he realizes what it is, his response is (softly, under his breath) "Oh wow, wow, wow." I didn't catch what else he said but he really was excited. I especially love when he drops it off the table. The second video is Sam and Tjabe playing with the now-assembled set. The coughing and gasping for breath at the end is Maggie choking on milk, which she does about every time she eats.

Thankful

Last night we asked Tjabe what three things he was going to thank God for during our prayers. In all seriousness he replied, "Toots, toots, toots." And yes, toots are what you think they are.

More Pictures

About a week ago...

About 2 weeks ago...

The longer she's out of the womb, the cuter she gets. As my mom puts it, she's had time to "fluff."

It's that time of year again...

Time for ElfYourself! I think it gets better every year. Here is the one my mom put together for our family, plus Megan (the one in the sunglasses). Good work Mom.

More Maggie

Here are some more recent pictures of Maggie, although even these are over a week old. I forget how quickly newborns change! She looks different from these pictures already. I also threw in a picture of Tjabe enjoying his first sucker. He licked it like an ice cream cone until he got bored with it and left it somewhere in the house to "finish later" (which I knew would never happen, so I threw it away, mean mom that I am). For the most part he is really good with Maggie, probably because he's not that interested in her. But the times he has been interested in her have been mostly positive, except when I'm feeding her and he wants me to hold or play with him. Today she was laying on the floor in his room where I had just finished changing his diaper. I ran out for a second to throw away the diaper and wash my hands, and meanwhile she is crying because she's getting tired. So as I'm coming back into the room I hear her crying stop for a minute and then start again, and I find that Tjabe has found her pacifier and put it in her mouth. He explained it to me when I got there and saw the pacifier lying next to her. I thanked him for trying to help. It's really sweet to see moments like that, even if the help isn't exactly what is needed. And then today at Target, there was a little girl (maybe a year and a half) in line with us who liked babies and wanted to see Maggie, so Tjabe pulled back her blanket and pointed to her, then patted her head. "See, isn't she cute?" he asked the little girl's mom. Ahh, the proud big brother.
And here are the pictures...





For those interested, Maggie is doing great and growing like crazy, mostly in plumpness. At her one week appointment she weighed in at 9 lbs 8 oz, and now at three weeks I think she weighs about 30 pounds. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but she is definitely getting chubby.