Brother and Sister

Lucy loves holding Hank - it's pretty sweet. In fact, it's so sweet that the first couple times she was holding him I would grab my camera. Now, every time she asks to hold him, the next thing she asks is for me to take a picture! It's goes a little something like this:

Lucy: "hold Hank... hold Hank... hold Hank"
Mom: "ok baby girl, one second, let me finish feeding him"
Lucy reaches and grabs Hank
Mom: "one second baby girl, he needs to finish eating, then you can hold him"
Lucy: "hold Hank?"
Mom finally hands Hank to Lucy once he's done eating
Lucy: "take picture... take picture... take picture"
(can you tell she likes to repeat stuff until it finally happens!)
Mom grabs camera... here are the results!

Check out Hank's pink swaddle! Sorry buddy, somethings just weren't worth re-buying in blue!


Jammie time!


I think he loves her just as much as she loves him...


Check out that smile!








She loves giving him kisses...

And then as soon as I take a picture, Lucy is up, ready to check out how her and Hank look in the photo...

Smiles

This little guy is seriously one of the happiest babies! It's funny, he is such an extremist - when he's fed and awake he is constantly smiling and cooing, but as soon as he gets sleepy he gets pretty upset. If only he didn't have to sleep, I think he'd smile all day long!

Here are just a few of the smiles I've captured in the past couple weeks. After nights of being up all night rocking Hank, this face makes it all worth it!

Christmas Eve 2011

Slowly but surely I'll get caught up! Fortunately, blogging is one thing that's easy to do while holding a baby that won't nap in his crib :)

Christmas was crazy... as usual. Someday we'll figure out something that is a little less hectic, but for now, we fit in four family gatherings plus church in two days. Christmas eve we started at my mom's and opened presents. Afterwards, we headed home for nap time and to get dressed for church. We went to the Christmas Eve service at 3:30 then headed to my grandparents afterwards - unfortunately we missed dinner because it took 30 minutes to get out of the Grace parking lot (where I think everyone in Hamilton County decided to go for church!)

Here are just a few highlights from our first Christmas Eve as a family of four.

I love our faces - it kind of describes how the holidays felt!

Passing out presents at Mimi's...


Mimi helped open presents...


While I held Hank and Ben videotaped!


Jordyn was at the most fun age to watch opening presents... everything was soooo awesome!




Santa butt...


Finally awake! Getting held by my oldest cousin...


Ok - time for outfit changes! Each kid had 3 outfits to get through in 2 days!


I couldn't get over how cute Lucy's outfit was, so I was snapping pictures while she was playing... not thinking about what she was doing. Can you imagine where that can ended up?


Hank Christmas Outfit #2


All the cousins at my grandparents..


Getting ready to open more presents at Nanni and Poppi's house...


Mimi helped again...


Present opening was crazy as usual, but I made sure to sneak off and grab a family picture...


And Lucy got some snuggle time with Mimi in...


Finally we headed home and did our own family Christmas. Starting next year I think we'll do the traditional present opening at our house on Christmas morning, but since we were heading to Ben's parents first thing in the morning we decided it would be easiest to open presents at night. Loving on my two babies...

Snuggle Time

I'm still playing catch up here! These are a bunch of random pictures from Hank's first month of life. Here's what I found in common with these pictures... how much we love cuddling with Hank!

Daddy holding his son - Ben usually takes over about 8 or 9pm and gives Hank a bottle and gets him to sleep while I try to fall asleep ASAP so that I can get a decent amount of rest before my middle of the night nursing marathon begins.


Big sis - Lucy still loves holding Hank a ton. She usually asks to hold him several times a day and has continued to be a great big sister. She even helps bring toys to Hank, likes to have tummy time with Hank, and likes singing and talking to him. She usually says in a high pitched voice to him "Hi baby hank" or "Hi bubba" or "Hi goofy guy"... it's pretty cute.


Even Ruthie gets in on the snuggling...




Ok, nobody is snuggling with him here... but look how cute he is, who wouldn't want to hold this little guy!!

S'mores Night

While I was pregnant I had grand gestures of making an advent calendar and doing lots of fun Christmas-y things with our family leading up to Christmas... and then Hank came... and I remembered how exhausting newborns are! Needless to say, the advent calendar was put on hold. Their were days when I just wanted to skip over Christmas completely, but we found a few hours here and their to put up our tree, shop for presents and do one activity I had planned for our advent calendar... indoor s'mores.

Helping Dad build the fire...


Digging into the s'more ingredients... who has time to sit and wait to assemble the s'more!



Ok, maybe I'll try toasting a marshmallow... and look at that sweet mullet Lucy has going on :)


Nah, I'd rather just eat it...


Loving on daddy...


Chocolate face!


Cheese!


And let's not forget Hank - he slept through the whole thing!

The Best Christmas Present

I am so absolutely in love with this little man - I keep taking pictures because I want to soak up every single moment I have with him. I have so many random pictures from over the past month, but I realized these all have a common theme - Christmas! There was just something so peaceful about sitting with the baby by the Christmas tree.




Ok, no Christmas decorations in this one, but this was Hank all dressed up for his first Christmas party. We actually made it out to two Christmas parties and a New Years Eve party this past month... proud of us!






More pictures to come of this adorable little man!