Geaux Halls!!!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Kaisley turns 2!!

We had our family and a few friends join us at The Little Gym to celebrate Kaisley's 2nd birthday party! She loves that place and had a blast!

The party started at noon (not my top choice, but that's what I get for waiting so late to schedule the party), so we immediately had a little pizza!

The cake was ready! Abby Caddaby was my biggest challenge yet! After doing a number of these type cakes, it wasn't that it was hard, but it took a LONG time! Four hours actually! And when starting at 11pm the night before, I was exhausted when I was done. Luckily I had Aunt Kristi in from Alaska to help me with cleaning tips, knifes, and so on, until 1am. And sweet Richard who ran to walmart at midnight, then stayed up til 3am when he took over for Kristi! Thank goodness they helped! This cake switched tips a ridiculous number of times, which ends up taking up so much of the time! So worth it though...especially when you see one of the pictures below!

I went easy on the cupcakes...Elmo toppers. But I didn't want Kaisley to be disappointed without Elmo (since she couldn't decide between Elmo and Abby for her cake)!

I was trying to get a picture of the birthday girl and her ADORABLE Abby shirt. My friend Kim is amazing at making these aplique shirts! Is it not the cutest???

Daddy, Kaisley and cousin Lucas playing inside. Lucas was visiting with his mommy & daddy from Alaska! We were so glad they could be with Kaisley to celebrate!

Kaisley and daddy having fun

Kaisley enjoying the parachute (as long as you don't ask her to get ON it!)

Aunt Niki and Sutton (not sure what that face is all about...lol!)

Trying again to get the shirt!!!

Thanks to my friend Katherine for coming to the rescue...my camera battery was dying maybe halfway through the party! :( So she snapped some amazing picture and sent them my way! Love her shots! Especially the ones of Kaisley and her birthday cake (below)!

Kaisley and Lucas

Big Brother Brookston enjoying the party!

Everyone singing to Kaisley

Blowing out her candles

Daddy showing Kaisley her Abby cake

Then she turns to me and says, "thank you for my Abby cake mommy" and gives me a kiss!

OH MY GOODNESS! Talk about melting a mama's heart!

Kaisley's excited face at present time!

She had a GREAT party followed by a great birthday!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Sweet baby tiger

I tried again...and my sister's coming!

We tried a sibling picture again....

I even promised suckers and candy...

We tried silly positions and silly faces...

But Sutton still wouldn't smile, Kaisley wouldn't look at me, and Brookston usually had a cheesy and totally not into this stuff smile on his face...

Oh well...maybe one day!

On a different note, my sister, her husband, and their 2 1/2 year old (Lucas) are coming for a visit. They live in Alaska, so our visits are few and far between. But still, for the distance, we do get to see each other here and there. I think having kids motivates us because we've been able to have visits every time one of us has had a baby! I'm so excited to see them and I know Brookston is excited to see his cousin. He still talks about seeing them at the beach almost a year and a half ago. I can't wait to make these new memories! Although it will be a little crazy with 4 kids in this house, 2 months, 2 years, 2 1/2 and 3 1/2! I hope we get some sleep! Hahaha!

Friday, January 28, 2011

2 months

Hard to believe my baby is 2 months (yesterday)!

He is growing like a weed:

13 lbs 3 oz, which honestly I was thinking he'd be more! The way he was gaining a few weeks ago I was sure he'd be well into 14 pounds! But instead this puts him just between the 75th and 90th percentiles! That's small for my babies so far! :)

24.5 inches, that's 95th percentile there! Wowzers! Did he JUST have a growth spurt maybe? I made sure the nurse did it well (sometimes I wonder, ya know...infants like to pull their knees in)! When I measured him at one month he was only 21.75 inches! So that's a lot!!

Trying to get a picture...

I tried and tried and tried...I probably took 20-30 pictures and this was as good as we could get. Never all 3 smiling (Sutton wasn't in the mood), but at least eyes were open (yes, sadly I consider most of these open eyes) and for the most part hands down! So...here they are, together!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Sweet moments

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Sutton's first real bath

As many of you know, my kids have very stubborn umbilical cord stumps. Brookston's took 10 weeks to fall off. At that time, I made a few special doctor's appointments since this was unusual, not to mention it was still there for the 2 month appointment. So, we went from doing alochol on his stump just once a day (which was the current recommendation), to alcohol on his stump at every diaper change (which was the previous recommendation), to doing nothing (a new study had just come out showing that the average length of time was 8 days if you did nothing, instead of the 10 days using alcohol). After all of this, it still took 10 weeks.

Come Kaisley, it was the same routine...we tried everything. And trust me, I was getting in there good. Can you imagine how many times I was asked if I was doing it right!??! I refer back to the study showing if you do NOTHING it falls off "faster". Ummm, not my babies! Anyway, her stump was still rather attached at 10 weeks and it was cut and cauterized!

So...when Sutton's stump fell off yesterday morning at just 6 1/2 weeks...I was thrilled! Hahaha!

So, here he is enjoying a real bath! It's funny because after 6 weeks of really good sponge baths (almost 27 weeks when you combine all 3 kids), this almost seemed harder! With so much practice doing sponge baths, I got REALLY good at them! :)

Okay, enough history, here he is...he LOVED it...as you can probably tell by all of these smiles he was flashing!

Of course when I switch the camera to video mode the smiles stopped and he started observing...but I still had to post the "big event"!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Cuteness and bowling

Daddy and Sutton being cute

Just SO cute!!!

Brookston and Hailey bowling

Brookston watching his ball

The ramp and the gutter guards made for some easier kid bowling!

We tried to get Kaisley to give it a shot, but she spent most of her time here.

Brookston is such a sweet big brother

Sutton flashing his sweet smile!

Friday, December 31, 2010

Sutton smiles!!!!

I can't even believe it...on Sutton's One Month Birthday (December 27th) he flashed a sweet little smile!

And again for the family Christmas gathering...

I'd even still be hesitant because it just seems so early at just 4 weeks, 2 days (at least compared to Brookston's 5.5 weeks and Kaisley's 8 weeks), but he's done it every day since that first gummy grin!

Christmas post below!