"When I was a little girl..."

Kelly has taken to telling stories that begin with "When I was a little girl..."

Funny in and of itself, but then she always finishes the sentence with some outrageous lie. For example:

"When I was a little girl, a giraffe used to bite my fingers."

"When I was a little girl, I used to ride the train to Philadelphia and I used to go to work."

"When I was a little girl, I was a police officer riding on a horse and there was a big crash and I was on a motorcycle."

These little girl stories have inspired me to start telling them about things I actually did as a little girl. And somehow Shannon and I have started making a list of the amazing technologies that have come along and changed our lives forever. For example:

"When Mommy was a little girl, computers that didn't know how to talk to each other but now we have the Internet."

"When Mommy was a little girl, you used to put a key in the door of your car to make it open but now we have remotes."

"When Mommy was a little girl, you couldn't see the pictures on your camera and you had to take a little part called to film to the store."

"When Mommy was a little girl, nobody had cell phones and you had to wait until you got to a house and use a phone that was attached to the wall."

That last one totally blows her mind. She has come up with some very alarming situations ("But what if you needed to see when Daddy was coming home?" "But what if you were on a walk?") that prove her point that humans really shouldn't have been able to survive without constant phone access.

Seamus: Three Months

The big guy just keeps getting bigger! At three months, Seamus is 16 pounds and filling out his 6 month clothes. And, after a week of exploding diapers, I realized it was time to move him up to size 3 already!

This picture is to demonstrate that he is so stinkin' cute. I love three months... the smiles, the laughs, the frantic attempts to make their hands do something, anything, oh-there-we-go-in-the-mouth.

The boy continues to eat well and is sporting some pretty hefty rolls. He's sleeping well too. For the most part, we'll put him down for the night around 10 and he'll go to morning with only one feeding between 3-4.

He's not rolling yet (which is FINE by me!) but is kicking up a storm on his back so I think it's not far off. He's got a strong neck and great balance... maybe he'll sit before he rolls! We put him in the Bumbo seat for the first time this week and he did great.

He's a talker. The girls love making him say "goo" and he loves words with "uh" sounds. Bubba Gubba always gets a smile from him.

Seamus LOVES his mobile and is my first baby who likes the baby swing. Which are good things because its crazy around here and being able to put him down happily means the world.

Love you, Seamus!

Rewind: Christmas 2011

It started as a Top Ten list but I ended up with...

Top Thirteen Things I'll Remember About Christmas 2011:

1. Seamus' first trip to see Santa

2. Our annual Hershey Park day with Marty and Stefanie

3. A new tradition: Cookie Decorating Party

4. Shannon's Christmas Show at St. John's.

5. Early Christmas in Ohio

6. The girls learned Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.

7 . Christmas Eve... chaotic but cute

8. Watching the Nutcracker with Seamus during his late night awake period

9. Christmas morning smiles

10. Christmas Day with the McGee's including Colorado cousins Veva and Dev

11. Playing with the new toys... lots of store with the cash register!

12. NYC trip to see Angelina Ballerina's Christmas Musical and having a blast with Just Dance)

13. Being so sad when "the crazy house" took its decorations down.

Seamus: Two Months

Well, it's taken me a few weeks to blog about it, but the picture was actually taken within a few days of being two months. Mr. Seamus continues to grow and grow and grow. At two months, he was just starting to flash us real smiles and beginning to settle into a nice daily rhythm.

By the way, this is what these photo shoots look like when Kelly's around.

Kelly continues to be our over-achieving big sister. There is no way that she can be too close to her little brother or kiss/hug/love on him enough during the day. We have to keep a constant vigil because she is convinced that she can pick him up and I find myself saying things like "babies don't like to wear headbands" quite often. But, at the end of the day, we're thrilled that both of our girls are so happy to have this guy around.

Seamus has become known as Mr. Hungryface around here thanks to the bedtime stories that Daddy invented (and Mommy crashed and introduced the Mr. Hungryface character into). He also gets called Buddy (as in "I know, Buddy, I know, I know, I know") and mister mister.

Gymnastics

Not only did we get a new brother this fall, we started gymnastics! Kelly's tiny size and freakish strength & endurance for a 2 year old combined with her love of climbing e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g and being upside down made us think that she would like it.

We were right.

Kelly started in September and found her little bit of heaven on earth at Kehler's Gym. They have amazing equipment, the staff is awesome and the every class has the kids rotating through different "obstacle courses" incorporating different skills and apparatus.

We were so smitten with the place that we signed Shannon up for the next session and now both girls go on Saturday mornings. Shannon and Kelly LOVE the trampolines.

Kelly is a great "spider Kelly" (walking along the parallel bars) and is always the most fearless kid when it comes to flipping on the uneven bars, climbing or jumping into the foam pit.

Shannon enjoys being old enough to be in a class with just kids (no parent helpers) and is really practicing her backwards rolls.

Christmas Tree 2011

We headed out to Linvilla on a sunny Sunday afternoon to chop down our Christmas tree. Hard to believe that we're four years into this family tradition.

Some things were the same:

The day was gorgeous




Kelly loved the little trees


Shannon loved the stumps

It was just as much about the hot chocolate as the tree

One notable difference:

Seamus: One Month

He's big! At 2.5 weeks Seamus weighed in at 11 pounds and as "experienced parents" we don't got back for an official weigh in until 6 weeks. Until then, we'll just measure his cuteness.

Super Cute.

Seamus is a pretty chill guy and doing a good job of being a baby. Eat, sleep, pee, poop, repeat. He is a night owl but once we get him down around midnight, he gives us 3-4 hour stretches at night. Days are filled lots of snoozing, tummy time with his big sisters and man time with Daddy while Mommy gets her early evening nap in. Current nicknames are Boo Boo Chicken, Buddy and Seamo (with Shanno and Kello already in the house, I think this one might stick).

Seamus had his first bottle this week. It was a family affair.

Kelly, my little assistant and lover of all things baby, was sooo excited to give him the bottle. (She has been asking about it daily since he came home from the hospital.) She took over the feeding after the first ounce or so.

Love you, mister!