He's Here!!!!!!

Andrew Jeffrey was born on Saturday at 10:42 am.  He weighed in at 8 pounds 8.8 ounces (.8 ounces bigger than Ashley and Natalie) and is 20 inches long.  He is adored by his 3 big sisters (and mom and dad).  Mom and baby are both healthy and were back home by 5 that evening.

At the hospital with daddy.

 

 At home with Natalie.

 

 At home with Alona.

At home with Ashley.

Almost There

Today I am 38 weeks!!!!! I am so ready to be done with this whole pregnancy thing.  It is not easy for me (with sickness and then ridiculous amounts of pain).  I can hardly walk anymore.  I am, however, keeping my eye on the prize- a cute baby boy I can dress in all those stripes!  My doctor will induce me at 39 weeks, so I am hoping we can do it next Saturday, although I might have to wait a few days till she is the on call doctor at the hospital.  I am hoping I won't have to wait.  I can't have this baby soon enough at this point!  The girls are so excited for it and so are Jeff and myself.

The hospital here has taken extreme (in my opinion) measures and banned children under 18 and then under 12 and then back and forth and whatever...!  I want my girls to be the first ones to meet him.  With them not allowed to visit, this just makes it more difficult.  I did hear yesterday that the ban was lifted for healthy siblings.  We will see if this is still the case when I deliver.  My plan is to only stay at the hospital the very minimum time I have to (just like I did with Alona and Natalie).  If they aren't allowing my children to visit at the hospital then I will come home, Jeff will pick them up from wherever they are staying and we will spend some time together as a family.  The girls are just so excited and I am so happy about that!  Then others can visit.  If they allow my children to visit at the hospital, (again) Jeff will pick them up and bring them to the hospital so we can have some time together as a family.  Then I will probably head home before anyone can visit, but if people really want to visit after the kids have been there then go ahead!

Jeff is cleaning the treadmill so he can put it in the office!  Then I can walk a lot (without risk of falling down in the rain) and hopefully get this little guy to come out sooner!  I can hardly wait!!!!

Too Cute! (Part 2)

I found the progress report that I mentioned in the last post.  It is so cute to read the exact words she wrote (and in her handwriting).  I just love it! Double click on the picture to read it!

Too Cute!

We had parent teacher conferences a few weeks ago. When we met with Ashley's teacher she showed up some of her work. She had a paper where she wrote her favorite subject, least favorite subject, what she was good at and what she needed to try harder at. She wrote that she liked Math and Reading the most. For things she needed to try harder she wrote "nothing." For what she liked the least, she wrote recess- because she isn't learning and she likes to learn! The teacher whole heartedly agreed that she didn't need to try harder at anything as she already tries her best in everything she does. I loved the recess comment!

She also made a picture one day about a month ago. She brought it to me and asked if my friend could print it on a huge banner at her work so she could hang it up outside. It had a picture of a dinosaur and she had written "buy Ashley Hojnacke's house." It was just so cute.

I love that she is so thoughtful and so eager to learn!

Stripes!

I washed all of the baby clothes and blankets! I am really on top of things this time around. I guess I am just a little too anxious to get this pregnancy over with. Maybe I was hoping that getting everything ready would make him get here sooner? Oh well. He hasn't shown up yet.
Seeing all the little clothes hanging on my drying rack made me really want him here even more! Look at all the cute stripey outfits!


Here is the pile of blankets, socks, mittens, and hats!

Learning the alphabet

Because Alona is the only left-handed person it our family, she gets confused easily. When I hand her a spoon, fork, pencil, etc. it is always with my right hand. She naturally takes it in her right hand. And then tries to use her right hand with the tool. I have to remind her to use her left hand quite often- especially when eating. I cans see she is struggling and it is strange to me that she doesn't just switch hands. My mother and my sister are left-handed so it is not unusual to me. I can feel for left-handed people who have to use right-handed scissors. I had to use my mom's left handed scissors once and it hurt!
Alona has difficulty when it comes to writing. She often writes backwards. Because the whole world probably seems backwards to her, she has an especially hard time remembering which way letters and numbers should face. Mind you, she is only in first grade so I am not too concerned, but I do want to make it as easy for her as possible. So tonight we were doing her spelling homework and it had the words dark and bark. She could not remember which way the d and b went. So I came up with a great way for her to remember:
in "bad" the b and d beat up the a! I drew bad with an arrow pointing to the a under both the b and the d. She totally got it! She is so excited to have a good way to remember how b and d face- and I would imagine this is a difficult one for all children, not just the left-handed ones. Now if I can just come up with a way to help her remember which way 6 and 9 go. Hmmmmm.

SURPRISE!

My awesome friends threw me a surprise baby shower this weekend! I have to say that I have the best friends, ever. Ever. I am not sure what I would do without them! I am so grateful for their support and friendship. You guys rock!

Here are some pictures from the shower. They were taken with a cell phone, so they aren't the best.

The shower was at Celina's house (seen here in a Ducks shirt). Thanks to her husband for missing the first part of the game for us!


A pregnant belly is the perfect place to put clothes together to see how an outfit will look!


Here is Bonnie. She did all the games and lied to me repeatedly to keep up the surprise!


As you can see in the following pictures, there were several babies in attendance. I think we had 4 babies and one 3 year old. I think they all enjoyed it as well! I loved seeing all of my friends and really appreciate the surprise!

Homemade OREOs

These cookies have been a favorite of ours since my friend Heidi introduced us to them almost 4 years ago.





For the cookies:
1 box devil's food cake mix
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons water
2 Tablespoons oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together.


Roll dough into small balls and place on baking sheet. I used the small Pampered Chef scoop just barely overfilled to portion the dough.

Bake for 10 minutes (the tops will crack). I usually get between 30 and 34 cookies (but you will end up with half that when you put them together).

I flatten the cookies just a little with my spatula.



Cool completely.

For the filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream the cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add powdered sugar and beat. It is best to refrigerate the filling so it won't be soft, but you can also refrigerate the cookies after putting them together to let the filling set up.



Take two cookies and frost the wrong side of one with filling. Sandwich the two together and enjoy!