Anna's Swanky Photoshoot

I finally got the images from Anna's newborn session from the photographer, so here, three months later, are some of her at just four days old...it seems like just yesterday!  Swanky5Studios took the pictures, and I just love ALL of them :)

~ Halloween 2011 ~

This year Halloween was super fun because it was Ben's first "real" Halloween that he understood the concept of dressing up and getting candy.  His first bag of loot came from school, where they had a candy parade though the church halls.  He was to dress up as a Biblical character, so Mama made him a king costume from a bathrobe and (spray painted) Burger King crown ~ he loved it and was so proud!!



King Ben

Here he is at school with his friend Riley. His teacher says they are two peas-in-a-pod because they are the "talkers" in the class...ha ha!!

For the actual trick-or-treating on Halloween, Ben dressed up as a golfer.  I really can't believe he wore the whole costume, including the hat, the whole time, but we kept saying how he was "just like Daddy", so I think he felt really cool :)

We had pictures made as part of a charity event, and both of them were super cute!  Anna wasn't any particular costume....just a cutie pie!!

On Halloween night, we went to a friend's neighborhood to gather with all of Ben's little buddies. 



Ben and Sophia



Anna in her Happy Halloween tutu and Candy Corn socks!

We might be mean parents, but after the night was over, we just hid Ben's candy bag and never mentioned it again....whew!  We had our taste of sugar highs and crashes from the school candy and didn't want to repeat it!  Ben has quite a big sweet tooth and once he got a taste of it, he constantly pestered us for candy for DAYS!!

Ben, Liam, Sophia, and Clara

Anna must have seen a ghost...ha ha!!

 But then it was all smiles!!  She did so great riding in the stroller, even though it was FREEZING outside!!

Fun times and great memories for our family!!

Anna ~ 2 Months

Another month has flown by, and Anna's two months old.  At her check-up this month, she weighed 10 pounds, 7 ounces ~ wow!!  I'm thrilled because she's gained about an ounce per day since her last check-up and that's GREAT :)  She's all grown out of size Newborn clothes and diapers!

Anna - Just over a month old

She still sleeps quite a bit, and we're not really on a schedule yet, but that will come soon, I'm sure.  She does eat around 9:30 each night and has recently started sleeping from about 10:30 to at least 5 a.m. or later!!  That is, until she got ANOTHER cold this week, and so has been waking up more frequently by sneezing herself awake, or being too stuffed up to breathe.  I feel so sorry for her!  I'd take the cold for her if I could, but I have it, too, ha ha!!



Anna got to meet her Great-Grandmother Brackett this month!

She also got to meet her cousin Hank - he was practicing for his new brother due in January.  I'm not sure WHAT he thought of little Anna!

Besides sleeping and eating, what much else does a baby do?  Not much!  Anna did start cooing at us about a week or two ago, and it's absolutely adorable.  She likes to say Ah-goo and Uga, uga :)  I could listen to her perfect little voice all day long!

Fender's Farm

It seems like just yesterday, we were taking little Ben to Fender's Farm LAST year...here we are again, and he's so big!!  Mason and Chandler got to go with us this year, and it was so fun to see them all play together and have such fun. 

Growing up...click here for the same pose from last year!!  He's all the way up the the "3" now!!

 Fun times on the bouncy jumper and go-cart track with Mason...

 ...and getting lost (literally - we had a moment of terror when Ben got lost once!) with Chandler.

 Boy Stuff:  finding bugs with Daddy, and feeding pigs...cool!

 More fun on the playground!

 Mama and Anna....this is usually what everyone sees of her (which I like because strangers aren't poking their fingers in her face since she's hidden!!)

 Here she is!!

September

Yes...September!  I'm a bit behind blogging, but oh well.  I'm used to it these days with a newborn and two-year old, ha ha!!  We had a busy month, of course, with Anna's birth, but did a lot of fun stuff, too!

Ben had a ball at the Junior League's Touch-a-Truck event.  His favorite truck was the fire truck...here he is sitting up there like a real fireman :)

He also really liked the "mail truck"...or, the UPS truck that he's seen come to our house a lot here lately.

Awww....taking his girlfriend Sophia for a little cruise ~ how cute!!

Continuing the "transportation" theme that's always popular with little boys, we also went to the airport to watch the airplanes.  It turns out that the Tricities airport is NOT the most happening place, averaging ONE takeoff and ONE landing each hour.  Ugh....I guess it was a little boring for Ben as we waited and he ended up scattering potting soil from a potted plant all over the floor when we weren't looking.  Oops!  Finally we saw some action, though, and he thought it was pretty cool.

The annual Dragonboat races were held at Winged Deer park, and Mark was on a team this year!!  So, we went to cheer him on and had lots of fun on the inflatables and playground.  Chandler and Ben couldn't get enough of this huge slide!

Anna was there to cheer Daddy on, too!  I think she ended up sleeping through the whole thing, though, haha!!

Anna's First Month!!

Anna, 1 1/2 weeks old

Well, we made it a whole month!  Time has really, really flown by.  Anna is a great baby ~ she has her moments, but ALL babies do!  She really likes to sleep (except sometimes when Mommy's exhausted.  Then it's time to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ;) and goes for stretches of 3-4 hours here lately.  I'm still waking her up during the day to eat after three hours.  At night, she usually wakes up on her own after 3 or 3 1/2, but is willing to go right back to sleep after eating, most of the time.  I call that a GOOD NIGHT!!  In the past week or so, she has been sleeping 4 or 5 hours at a time - whoo hoo!!  Just like Ben was, though, she's a little night owl...Daddy has baby duty from 8 or 9:00 at night until 11 or 12 a.m. when she finally goes down for the night.  If only she'd shift that schedule back a few hours...!!

~ 2 1/2 weeks old ~

Nursing is still going well.  At her one month appointment, she weighed 8 lbs 7.9 ounces (25th percentile) and was 21 1/4" long (75th percentile).  Yay, yay, yay ~ that means she's gained over an ounce a day since her last appointment, which is GREAT! She's still wearing newborn size clothes, but has just about outgrown newborn diapers.  

  

* Kisses from Big Brother Ben *

Sweet times with Daddy...

 ...and Mama...

Anna also got her very first bath and absolutely LOVED it!  Mark and I agreed that we're much better bath-givers now than we were with Ben (sorry buddy!).  We had the bathroom all warmed up with the space heater, and had a neat washcloth-type thing you put in warm water then cover the baby with until you need to move it to wash them.  I think she was nice and cozy...

We also learned a trick from the baby nurses at the hospital.  When they gave her her first bath, they just washed her body, dried her off, then swaddled her with a bunch of blankets.  Only then did they wash her hair.  Why didn't we think of this before!?!  That way, baby's all dry and warm and it's like getting your hair shampooed at the spa!!  Ha ha!!  She seemed to enjoy it :)

And my favorite moment of all...big, strong Daddy bathing his little girl with such tender love....makes my heart happy :)

We Are Fa-mi-ly!!

With Baby Ben, everyone went back and forth...who does he look like?  Mama?  Daddy?  Some of both?!  Well, there's been no question with Baby Anna.  Why?  Because she looks Just. Like. BEN!!!!  Now that she's a month old, she's changed a little and starting to look like her own person, but in the hospital, she could have been mistaken for Ben's twin!  Check out the pictures of them ~ in all of these, Ben is on the left, and Anna is on the right...