Nate’s First Cold

Yes, Nate finally caught his first cold, and that is one of the reasons I haven’t been able to update this blog recently.  It’s kind of hard to do anything when you have a feverish, sniffling, sneezing infant who wants nothing more than to be held and rocked and carried everywhere (and  for some reason he HATES sitting at my computer desk).

Nate gets very angry when his nose is stuffy.  But he also doesn’t like nasal aspirators or saline, so I tell him he just has to deal with it.  Thank goodness he seems to be a little less stuffy this evening, and he hasn’t run a fever today.  He even cracked a smile once or twice.

Isaac made him a get-well card.

The text is a little hard to read.  He writes, “Hope you feel better before Christmas.  And I hope you don’t have to get two shots in your legs the day after Christmas like I did in 2006.”  I can’t believe he remembered that day in such vivid detail.

Isaac also made Nate a Christmas card last week:

So now we know why Isaac loves having 3 brothers.  More siblings = more presents!

December

Thanksgiving weekend was REALLY busy, but fun.   Mark’s sister, brother-in-law and their two sons visited all the way from Pittsburgh.  We really enjoyed having them over.  Our boys were very excited to have their cousins here, and all the kids played well together.  It was nice to spend some time with family getting caught up.  We had our turkey with the usual fixings, and there are LOTS of turkey leftovers to enjoy this week.

On Friday, I did a (very) little Black Friday shopping, and went to work for a few hours.  Nate had his four month well baby check that afternoon.  He is growing well (17 lbs 9 oz) and is developmentally on target.  His eczema was TERRIBLE, though, and the pediatrician prescribed him some triamcinolone cream to use along with the moisturizers we’re already slathering all over him.  He only got 2 shots (Prevnar and Pentacel) as well as an oral vaccine (Rotarix).

On Saturday we made our annual trek out to the Christmas tree farm.  This proved to be a little challenging this year because we now have two babes in arms.  Initially we planned to just pick a pre-cut tree from the barn.  However, once we arrived at the farm, the big boys saw the tractor and really wanted to go on the hay ride.  In the end, we all rode on the tractor, and I waited with the babies at the drop-off point while Mark took Isaac and Jonny to get us a tree.

This worked out well since the weather was fairly warm (around 50 degrees).  Ben loves being outside when it’s not too cold and he was in a great mood, and he smiled and giggled, and even stood up nicely for awhile, leaning back on my legs for support.  And surprisingly, Nate was quiet.

The big boys came back with our tree, and we rode the tractor back.  They wrapped up our tree and we went home.  I’m glad we got the tree on Saturday because the weather has been colder and wetter since then.

Can you believe it’s only 23 days until Christmas???

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had as enjoyable and relaxing Christmas as we did! Our older two boys were so excited, and couldn’t wait until it was time to go downstairs and open some presents (we told them they had to wait until 8 am, and they were actually very patient). Santa was far more generous than he should have been.

Ben, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered and slept until the only presents left under the tree were his! Of course, his brothers helped him unwrap them.

Here are Jonny and Isaac in their brand new Legend of Zelda t-shirts. I wonder where Santa found those? Santa brought Isaac a brand new Nintendo DS, and Jonny got an awesome VTech kids’ digital camera (which Santa found at a great price).

Best of all, Isaac missing two front teeth finally started growing in just in time for Christmas!   He is eagerly looking forward to eating corn on the cob again this summer!

Christmas Card Photos!

We are Christmas card procrastinators. It’s a week before Christmas and we haven’t sent ANY out yet (although we’ve received many, thanks to our CdLS family!) So last week we decided to get the boys dressed up for our annual Christmas photo, since we are too cheap to go to an actual studio.

Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t go to a real studio; the older boys are squirmy subjects and it would be a waste of money! Poor Ben had quite enough after awhile…

Ben was exhausted by the end of our photo shoot. He even looks like he’s still frowning in his sleep!

More Christmas Tree Photos…

As I mentioned before, we went out and got a Christmas tree on Saturday afternoon. We picked out a beauty, and for some reason Mark had a really difficult time cutting it down. That reason became clear once we got it home. It was huge! It didn’t seem quite so big in the field, but it barely fit in our house! The top was almost touching the ceiling! Mark needed a ladder to put the angel and the lights on it.

We finally got around to decorating it late Sunday evening, even though Isaac and Jonny were begging to get started before Daddy put the lights on the tree.

As usual, we let Isaac and Jonny put on the unbreakable ornaments on the bottom, while Mark and I put the glass ornaments on the top. Every year we buy a new ornament for the tree – something symbolic of the year that is ending. This year we got little soccer ball ornaments and put the boys’ photos in their soccer uniforms in the middle. We always have such a good time reminiscing about past years’ ornaments, especially those from each boy’s first Christmas. We also have an amusing assortment of ornaments the boys have made over the years in preschool and daycare.

Here’s our Christmas tree with its eclectic collection of ornaments. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh Christmas Tree…

Thanksgiving is over, December is here, so yesterday we went on our annual Christmas tree hunt. The weather was clear and chilly, but not as cold and windy as last year. All three boys were in great spirits, even Ben who doesn’t like being outdoors in cold weather. This year we had a little bit of a hike to get our tree. The tractor dropped us off on the other side of the pond:

But thankfully we had a cart this year.

After we cut our tree we went back to the barn for some hot chocolate…

…and cookies…

…and Ben got to hold Isaac’s gloves for him.

What a great day! We even saw a real live reindeer!