We love Randomness

A lot has happened over the last couple weeks as Elise has been growing and it's been right smack dab in the middle of the Holiday Season.  We haven't done anything too exciting but spend time together.  So here are some random photo's of what we've been up to.

Audrey spent some quality time with her little sister

My Dad became known as the "baby whisperer" as he could ALWAYS get Baby Elise to fall asleep.

Elise perfected her "blue steel" look from Zoolander

Tis the season for package delivery and the girls found many a use for those boxes

My Dad painted our kitchen...

I LOVE it!  It is WAY better than the spa green it was before!

Elise had her FIRST bath.  YAY!

A Name and A Blessing

He took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

Mark 10:16

Elise was given a Name and A Blessing at Church when she was 2 weeks old.  We were lucky to have some family come in town for the special occassion!  My parents were already here for Elises's birth and then Wade's dad and step-mom and their daughter came into town that weekend.  We had a great time visitng with each other.

All of our family that was in town

Wade's Dad (Wes), his wife Kim, and their daughter Hollie with US

My Mom and Dad with US

Just US

Our Girls!!

Sweetness!!

Merry Christmas

We wish you all a VERY Merry Christmas!  We hope that the true Spirit of Christmas finds you all!  We are thankful for the birth of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ and the great gift HE is to the World!!  After asking Nora this morning if she knew who was born on Christmas and her reply was,"Santa", I

realized that maybe we haven't been focusing on the Pure love and light of Christ and what a gift he was AND is to us ALL!  :) Needless to say we will be reading from the Book of Luke tonight! :)

We hope this year has brought you all happiness and we wish you a happy New Year too! :)

Here's a sweet little video on children talking about Christmas...Hopefully next year Nora will be up to par...LOL! 

PS...you may want to turn off or pause my blog music, scroll down on the left. ;)

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas...

We actually decorated the weekend before Elise was born, but it's taken me a while to get in the Christmas spirit!  There are really so many things I want to do, I just don't have the time or energy.  But we have at least decorated the tree and decorated Christmas cookies.  Those 2 things are  Christmas MUST DO's...well, those AND watch "It's a Wonderful Life" for the millionth time, which we did too!! :)

Our tree...I tried to be creative and take a pic of our tree in the dark.  I love how it GLOWS!!

 

And then with all the lights on!

Then the girls got ahold of it and threw their necklaces and toys on it...

Don't you love the Cowboy hat?

And now for the cookies!!  The girls helped mix the dough with their hands and then cut them out.

A few of Nora's creations

uh oh!!  Audrey's got the sprinkles...watch out!

Almost done...

The final products!!!!

Meet Elise

Yes, I'm WAY behind on blogging!  It's not like I've been doing anything...just lounging around the house.  I mean, you'd think I had a c-section and dealing with a newborn...lol!  

Here's Elise!!

She was born Nov. 29th

7lbs 6oz

20 inches long

So far she is a pretty easy baby.  She totally has her moments, but overall she is pretty relaxed.  Nora and Audrey really love her!  Audrey has been very nice and is NOT jealous at all, THANK GOODNESS! Nora has assumed the big sister roll and wants to hold and take care of baby Elise.  She can't stand got Elise to cry to will play with and pick her up to keep her from crying.

Me before my dreaded c-section...really, I DREAD them!!  

The first time we meet!

The girls were SO excited to finally meet their baby sister!

Nora holding her

Audrey holding her

Just us

Proud Papa

Leaving the hospital...I only stayed 2 days this time as opposed to 3, yippee! :)

The girls and their matching "sister" shirts.  Their shirts say; baby sister, big sister, and bigger sister!  Nora and Audrey wore them to school the following Monday.

The Baby!

TOMORROW

So, it's kind of weird to know that I am gonna wake up in the morning and go have a baby!  Baby Elise will be here around NOON tomorrow!  I'm very excited yet a little nervous too.  I guess I was a little nervous with Nora and Audrey too.  But something about adding a 3rd child makes me worried.  First, I'm worried about the c-section, more the recovery I guess.  I've never minded that I have my babies by c-section.  It's just the thought of having to recover with 2 other kids at home.  I'm just thankful that my super helpful hubby will get the whole week off work AND that BOTH of my parents are here.  My parents have already called shifts.  My Dad gets the early shift to take care of the girls and my Mom gets the late shift...LOL! Their the greatest!

I'm also thinking about how weird it is when you first take your baby home.  I remember when we took Nora home...Wade and I laid her down and then just looked at each other like, "what do we do now". Well, we know what to do and what's going to happen, but it's still a little weird that first day having an extra child.

Also, I worry about Audrey!  She is such the "BABY".  Now she's gonna be the middle child, dont' know how that's gonna work out.  I'm not really worried about sharing my love and time, just worried about HER in general, like how she's gonna cope.  Right now she ALWAYS wants to sit in my lap and she hates sharing me with Nora.  Nora is a GREAT big sister so I'm not really worried about her, she'll be even better with Elise! :)  It's the middle child syndrom I'm worried about.  I've had 2 situations arise this week that has made me very aware of this. FIRST, I realized that I don't have a "baby's first" ornament for Audrey.  Don't know how I missed this.  We of course have one for Nora as she was our first.  And I bought one last week for Elise. Maybe it's because Christmas came MONTHS after Audrey was born..IDK!  But I feel just horrible about it.  THEN, for the BIG ONE....we all went to get a Christmas tree the other day.  When we get home, Nora got out of the car and Wade unbuckled Audrey expecting her to crawl out of the car and follow us in the house.  Well, not sure who did it, maybe me, maybe Nora, but one of us closed the doors from the garage to the house not realizing Audrey hadn't come in.  Well, about 5 minutes went by and then Audrey finally opens the door to the house just CRYING her eyes out.  She was SOOOOOO upset!  I guess she had a hard time opening both doors to get into our kitchen (one door to the laundry room and another door to the kitchen).  As you know, the light goes out in the garage after a couple minutes too,  So poor little Audrey was trying her BEST to open the doors in the DARK!!!  And none of us even realized she wasn't in the house.  BLESS HER HEART!  I REALLY felt like crap.  I just hope that forgetting poor Audrey is not going to be a regular thing.  BREAK my HEART!!

Ugh! I am sure everything will fal into place once baby is here.  I mean, I'm sure it will be WAY hard in the beginning, but I'm not the first mom to have three kids and I won't be the last.

I'll post pics as soon as I can!

look-A-likes?

I took a picture yesterday of the girls (I know, I can't believe I did it either...LOL) for our Christmas Card.  Anyway, after looking at the picture I started thinking about how everyone thinks Nora is a mini-me, but REALLY it's Audrey that looks like me at her age.  Also, If you saw pics of Wade sisters when they were little, than you would say she is a TOTAL Bolinger!! 

Anyway, Nora obviously does look like me, well, because I'm her MOTHER..LOL! :)  But, I just wanted to point out how much she looks like other family members and believe it or not, but Audrey is a mini-me at her age.

Below I have 2 pictures.  The first is a picture of MY sister and I.  I am about 2 and Shelley is about 9.  Below it I have the picture I took yesterday.  I know, I know,  I shouldn't show everyone the pic I took for our Christmas Card, but everyone will still have to stay tuned for the picture of Elise on our card! ;)  Anyway, it's kind of funny how much Audrey looks like me and Nora looks like Shelley.  I mean, maybe it's not an exact match, but pretty dang close...don't ya think?

 

Nicole and Shelley 1980ish

Audrey and Nora 2009





Maternity Pictures

I got the CD of my maternity session in the mail today...SO EXCITING!  I LOVE them all!  So at the risk of seeming narcissistic, I am posting a couple of my FAVS!!  I so want to put one of the girls and I on a Christmas card, but that would probably be weird considering Elise will be outside of the womb and then people may wonder where Wade is...LOL! :) Anyway, a photog friend of mine took them for me so I have to give a shout out to Bluebird photography!!

what to do, what to do??

Ok, so I am putting this out there on the web b/c I am at a TOTAL loss.  I usually don't ask for opinions on certain children situations b/c I've just learned that all children are different and sometimes we just have to figure them out ourselves.  But I am TOTALLY stumped on this one!  Really, I think I would like to know if it has happened to anyone else.

So, I have Potty trained my 2 year old TWICE now.  And both times was successful...for a couple weeks....until she just loses interest!!!  It's driving me NUTS!!.  The first time I didn't worry about it b/c we were about to go on a LONG cross country vacation.  I'd rather have a child in diapers than stopping every 20 minutes to use the bathroom.  But, this time it's different.  We started about a month ago.  She seemed interested so I just went with it.  After a week or so she seemed to have it down.  She was going #1 and #2 consistently.  Sure we had a few accidents here and there, but that's to be expected.  Then about a week ago she had just LOST interest. She doesn't even TRY!  I've already cleaned up 2 messes by 9:30 am this morning.  She peed in the car yesterday too.  She WAS excited and would hold it in the car and tell us when she had to go.  NOW, she says nothing, she just goes...in her panties...on the floor....and doesn't even tell me!  I was so over it this morning, I told her she was going back to diapers.  I put her in a diaper an the next thing you know...she took it off and went potty.  I can't win for losing with this little girl.  It's almost like she just wants to prove that she can do it like she's saying, "ok, I did it, i can potty, now I'm over it"!!  LOL!

So the question is...do I push through it or give it up and revisit it after a couple months AFTER Elise is born???

Seriously, SOOOOOOOO frustrating.  I mean, we all know potty training is frustrating, but I successfully trained Nora.  It was Hell, but we did it and it stuck.  It just won't STICK with this little girl!!!  HELP!

Wade's 34th..or is it 33rd?!

Wade's 34th birthday was Nov. 2nd and I had a couple tricks up my sleeves.  Apparently, the first trick I had was to turn back time as his cupcakes and decor all said 33!!!  HAHA!  I'm totally playing pregnancy card with that one! :)  Anyway, Wade and I had a lunch date where I gave him the BEST gift EVER...A Kindle!!!  He was SOOOOOO excited!  It's been a while since I've seen him that excited.  That man LOVES to read so it was the PERFECT gift for him!  

Then The girls and I made him some carrot cake cupcakes.  Carrot cake is Wade's FAV...not sure why, but I go with it! LOL!  Nora helped me draw some birthday decor for her Daddy.  He loved it!  If you know my hubby at all, then you know it's the simple and thoughtful things he appreciates (again, we're complete opposites). Overall, I think he had a GREAT birthday, if I say so myself! 

Wade's cupcakes...uhm, that should be 34...hahaha!

Nora helped me come up with 33 reason why we love daddy.  Again, should be 34, but whatever!  Here  are a couple she came up with.  I only had to help her with about 5, her list kept rolling on.  I guess she loves her Daddy!

All 33

Birthday banner that Nora colored.  Audrey doesn't get as into coloring as Nora does, so I let it be Nora's little project.

Nora also drew Daddy a cupcake (left) and a cake with candles on top with her daddy blowing them out (right)

Wade with the girls showing off his cupcakes and enjoying 1 LESS year! :)