My Big Little Man

I am finally getting to posting about my big little man. I can't promise lots of details right now, but at least I'll get some pictures up!

Elijah Joseph was born Aug 9, 2011. He was a whopping 9 pounds 12 1/4 ounces and 22 1/4 inches long! YIKES! Yes, he came on his own, and I delivered him naturally, with just a few drugs (surprisingly, not as painful as you'd think with his size!) But enough of that stuff, here's the good stuff - pictures of my beautiful little man!!

Me on Saturday night before he was born. (Where was he hiding?? I have no idea!)

Yes, he has really LONG feet!

Meeting Kenzie & Lillia for the first time

Mommy & Elijah

Showing his support for Daddy's team - the Colts

Kenzie & Lillia ADORE their baby brother!

Watching TV with Dad

All dressed up & ready to go home!

Such big, bright eyes!

Sun-tanning to help get rid of a little jaundice

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I cannot believe it is June already! This spring has flown by and here we are, June 6th. Yikes! It has been a crazy busy spring, but that's what keeps us out of trouble! Here's a quick update:

Doug's youngest brother got married this past Saturday, and my three favorite people were in the wedding:

My new favorite song is "Just Fishin'" by Trace Adkins. It may be my pregnancy hormones in full swing or the fact that this song IS Doug & Kenzie, but I almost cry every time I hear it. My favorite line "She's doing almost everything but sitting still. Talking her ballet shoes and training wheels, and her kitten. And she thinks we're just fishin'......But I guarantee this memory is a big 'un." Especially since Kenzie is so excited to be able to go fishing with her Daddy again this summer with a new pink princess fishing pole.

We spent Memorial Day relaxing and enjoying family in Tennessee. Everything from swimming, eating, Laser Tag, eating, swimming, and eating some more. What a great weekend!

The girls enjoyed the pool. Even Lillia was all over the pool on her own with her "wings."

Oh, and it was the year of the cicada. I could not believe how LOUD they were! The sound was almost deafening during the day, and it was constant! It sounded like someone shaking maracas very hard, all day long! And the ugly things were everywhere!

We also started our big outdoor project over Mother's Day weekend. Our deck by the back door. We've talked about this since we've moved in, and this year seemed like a good year to actually do it. Well, to at least start it. This is what it looked like after the first weekend.

And this is almost how it still looks today - but there are the rest of the joists in. It is quite a chore to use our backdoor. And its only been about 4 weeks since we started. It MIGHT get done before the end of the summer.

We had an absolutely gorgeous spring (if you don't count the unusually large amount of rain that we have been getting) - at least I think our yard was amazing this year!

The girls have a few new animals to take care of - we got 6 new baby chickens in March and 5 new ones in May. Of course, they are all named. Sometimes I wonder why we name all our animals! Kenzie could not wait to hold the new chicks, but Lillia was a little more skeptical! She hated the feeling of their feet on her skin, so she preferred to just "pet" them with one fingertip!

Notice the mitten in the hand she's actually holding the chick with!

We are also just 2 months away from meeting the newest little member of our family! And I don't think Doug will be allowing me to put hair bows and cute little dresses on this one! We already have a laundry basket started with lots of clothing with BLUE, puppies, footballs, and cars! The girls cannot wait to meet "Baby Brother." And Kenzie is doing a great job practicing taking care of her baby doll - asking questions like, "Will be hold Baby Brother like this?" and "When will Baby Brother be big enough to do....?"

Yes, There is a Reason!

To answer any questions before they are asked, "Yes, Lillia is wearing Kenzie'shirt." But,"Yes, there is a reason she is wearing it!" Lillia is going to be a big sister too! We are expecing Baby #3 in August! We can already tell that Lillia is going to be a BIG help, too!

And after this weekend, three kiddos will definately keep me busy! We took our first trip to the ER for stitches on Saturday. Miss Lillia, my little helper, was helping me in the kitchen and found the food processor. She managed to get the cover off, and grabbed for the blade, as I reached for her. Her little thumb bled and bled, until we made it to the ER, in a snowstorm, none the less! Lillia ended up with two stitches and a big bandaged thumb. She was a trooper, poor thing even fell asleep with we were numbing her thumb in a little cup of lidocaine. However, she was wide awake and not happy as they put the two stitches in her little finger. She has done very well, though, and for the most part leaving the bandage on. Lillia hasn't complained or even acted like it bothers her! She just holds it out as she goes about playing - and the only reason she does that is because the tape is all the way down her finger and keeping it from bending! This is the child that will give me gray hair. I'm sure of it.

Merry Christmas!

The worst part of being a parent is when your child gets sick. The even worse part is when it happens over Christmas. Poor Lillia got sick on Christmas Eve, during our Paxson family get together. We weren't opening gifts that night, just having supper and playing games. But still, it's not fun when your baby gets sick and there's a houseful of people. However, she seemed to be feeling better by morning, and we opened our gifts and the ones that Santa left. The girls had so much fun opening gifts and playing with them right away, we had to keep reminding them that there were more to open! We were up until the wee hours of the morning putting together the big gift for Lillia. It took 5 adults and almost 2 hours! Granted, one was reading directions, one was putting the main piece together and 3 were putting together the accessories. Here's what it looked like when we opened the box.


Even Bo & Dakota got it on the Christmas morning fun. They could smell something in their stockings, but couldn't quite reach them! They were very patient too!



Here are a few pics of the girls enjoying their gifts.



And the big gift that took forever to put together. Note Kenzie's excitement over Lillia's present!!And Kenzie's Santa gift - she was very excited too!


After opening gifts at our house, we headed over my Nanny's for another Christmas. Lots of food, people and gifts. Then poor Kenzie get hit by the flu bug. All afternoon she was acting pretty yucky, but then once she actually got sick, she said she felt so much better! But we came home, and Mommy & Kenzie took a nice long nap. Hopefully they are over the yucks and can enjoy the last 2 Christmas celebrations we have this week!

Birthday Party Times Two!

We don't things small around here. With Kenzie turning 4 on the 12th and Lillia turning 2 on the 22nd, we needed a couple of parties to celebrate the big occasions. So instead of having two small parties a week apart, we decided to have one HUGE party. Complete with homemade gingerbread houses and all the cake and candy that goes with it! Everyone decorated their own houses, and we had icing, candy, and coconut everywhere! It looked like it had snowed in my dining room, there was so much coconut on the floor! So, without any further ado, here's the pics of the party!

Kenzie's Gingerbread house cake

Lillia's Gingerbread girl cake

Kenzie working on her house

Lillia eating some of her house!

Opening presents

And we ended the day by eating ice cream cones. Great idea at 9 pm, Uncle Gary!

It's December...So It Can Snow!

Those were Kenzie's exact words last night. She was so excited about today being December, since we've told her 3 big things happen in December - snow, her birthday & Christmas! Well, imagine her absolute delight in the fact that she woke up to snow this morning! And its been snowing all day! Not a lot of accumulation, but at least there are some pretty decent patches of white!

And, we finally got the Christmas tree decorated. It has been up since Sunday night, but I've had a small battle with the lights.

After lighting it all on Sunday, I decided it didn't have enough lights on it (600 lights on a 7 foot tree just didn't seem to cover it! Evidence that my first job was at Village Green, the home of the ultimately lighted & decorated Christmas trees, where 100 lights per foot was minimum!) We thought we could replace a couple of the lights that had gone bad on one particular strand, however, that made the entire strand go out. I guess 5 years is the life expectancy of cheap Wal-mart lights. And since they were that old, I can't find the half blue/half clear bulbs anymore.

Putting the Angel on Sunday night - prior to the light problems!

So, I thought instead of investing in brand new lights for the entire tree, I could make it "work" with a strand of blue & clear lights, which I would have to replace half the lights with the opposite color. Didn't work out so well. After I started switching out lights, the brand new strand wouldn't work anymore. So I gave up and dug thru my endless boxes of Christmas decorations and came up with several strands of multi-colored lights. Not my first choice, but I do have to admit that 500 lights is ok on the tree, and multi-colored are much prettier when my almost 4 year old's eyes light up with excitement and starts singing, "Red, Yellow, Blue, Green!" It's a rainbow!" So, I guess we are sticking with multi-colored lights this year!

The actual decorating part was a treat. Lillia insisted on picking up every ornament and attempting to hurl them at the dogs, across the table, or run off to far corners of the house with them! If I would have let her have her way, Bo & Dakota would have been decorated, the bathroom would have ornaments, and the kitchen would have its share of ornaments! Kenzie did a good job, however, there is a section of tree that has many many ornaments on it - I've been restraining my OCD self into leaving all the ornaments where she put them! After all, seeing Christmas thru her eyes is alot more fun than having everything neatly in its place on a Christmas tree!

The Girls Decorating the Tree!

Oh, and we started our Advent Nativity book tonight! Love it! Kenzie was so excited about it when she saw me pull it out of the tote on Sunday night, she insisted we read it then, but we convinced her to wait until December to put up the first character. Another reason she was excited that today was December! And picture this, Doug, Kenzie, Lillia & I are all cuddled up on the couch reading the book before bedtime. In the middle of the story, Lillia crawls onto Kenzie's lap and does her little fishy face and kisses Kenzie on the nose! It was adorable, and sent all of us into a case of the giggles! Priceless!