Family Pictures with the Whole Family

OK... this is the last set of professional family pictures we that Julia took of us last week.

Enjoy...

Pics with Mom... Pics with Dad...

Family Pictures: Bella

Here are more pictures we too with our friend Julia. If you like her work you can learn about her here.

These picture focus on Isabella... isn't she so photogenic!

Family Pictures: Noah

Our friends Julia who is a professional photographer took some family pictures of all of us. Here are the ones of Noah.

Sunday Fun-day

We've had quite a rain storm the last few days! The lawn and and trees are happy! With all the rain we haven't been able to get out much so we've had a bit of cabin fever.

But late morning the rain broke and it was time to get outside! Mom and Dad got out for a long walk and when we got home Isabella got to jump around in muddy puddles.

One is Isabella's favorite cartoons is Peppa Pig. We discovered this when we were visiting London a couple of years ago. One of the things Peppa loves to do is jump around in muddy puddles.

Noah is starting to have more moments where he is alert. We decided to get this out of the closet and put him down. He had a lot of fun.

New hair do and sheets

We had a busy day running a lot of errands and today was a perfect day for it because we having a major storm here so it was not much outdoor activity anyway. First on the agenda was a hair cut for Bella who's bangs was getting into her eyes. She loves getting her hair done and keeps looking at her self in the mirror over and over again.

We're trying to make Bella's room more girly at her request to new pink sheets was arranged and as a added bonus they also featured princesses which off course is her favorite thing right now. We have accepted the fact that we have a princess and pink loving girl. How this happened we have no idea :)

The sky did clear up as we have a eye of the storm so we to advantage of it and spend some time in the garden. It was still cold however so we all bundled up including Noah who also enjoyed checking out big sister climbing and swinging.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

Exploring, growing and finding some privacy

Six week and already grown and changed so much. Noah is now more alert and enjoys entertaining us with his smiles and giggling. Today I put him down on her play mat which used to belong to Bella when she was his age. She loved it and so does her brother. He was having a conversation with the animals hanging there and about what is between Noah and them.

I made a cave for Bella out of blankets and it's a place where only princesses age 4 can be, no moms. daddies or baby brother. She sits in there coloring and eating her snacks. I think she enjoys a little lone time some times.

Kids can sleep any way they like

Noah has strange ways he likes to sleep and after a cranky afternoon he finally passed out side ways on poor Danielle. She was stuck like this for an hour in the rocking chair while Noah as happy as a clam.

Happy Valentine's day everyone!!!!

Hello world

Noah is a very alert and curios little boy and he has an amazing neck strength as you can see in one of these pictures. He loves sitting on you shoulder or in your lap where he can see things.

Hmm what is big sister up to?

You talking about me?

Wide awake and getting over a cold + mom getting a work out

Noah has had his first cold and I guess this what we get for having Bella is school with 15 other germ infested kids. Bella didn't have a her first cold until she was 9 month. Poor Noah's nose has been so stuffed he's been having problem eating so we took him to see Dr Sepulvada and he cleared the nose so now he's almost back to normal. Almost. The last two mornings he's been waking up right before five and having huge problems going back to sleep. This morning he did not sleep until after 7am.

He's lucky he's cute :)

On a lighter note, I've joined Stroller Strides at Mission Bay for a work out. They meet 6 times a week in the morning and is lead by an instructor who guides us in a 75 minute workout with the strollers. It's so much fun working out with 10-20 other moms but boy is it hard and I'm quit sore today. Annie joined me with Leila and even when Leila cried and needed to be held she still did the work. Talk about motivation!

Annie and Leila feeling the "burn".

All you need is love!

Today Bella has been all about love. When she came home from school I asked her about school and she said I will tell you but first let me hug you. Later she was playing with Noah and said "I love you mommy, I love daddy and I love Noah...You are my family and I love you". I love my little girl who is growing up way too fast but who has promised me she will be my little girl forever.

The show must go on

We can't believe that Noah is 5 weeks already. In some ways it feels like he has always been here but on the other hand it feels so new. What does not feel new to us but is getting rather old is his sleep routines and shall we say lack of them. Last night we got around 4 hours of sleep and not in a row may we add. We got so spoiled with Bella it's hard not to compare.

Life does not stop just because you have a baby so we find creative ways to still get things done with Noah along. Bella had a play date over at the neighbors house today so we made the best on the time and got things done around the house. James had to put up some shelf and Noah laid on the bed watching what he was doing. I had to prep dinner and with the help of Baby Bjorn I still could hold him close, just how he likes it.

Preparing a marinade but mom keeps Noah away from open flames :)

A little more to the left dad

Noah taking a nap while mom is socializing with the neighbor

He is one happy and easy going dude for sure, 5 weeks today!!!

Bella's new apron

Bella loves these Swedish characters called Barbapappa. She has a lot of Swedish books about these guys which she loves to make daddy read. Now he can speak and read Swedish but it's a challenge to read a whole book but he has come up with a good idea where he does not read it but rather makea up a story about the pictures. Cleaver man! Bella was so happy to get a package from Sweden with a Barbapappa apron from Ansi so now she looks very good helping mommy cook in our new kitchen.

Listening

Time with Bella now is extra special. We really focus on carving out the time around Noah's needs. Last night Bella and dad built the most elaborate castle out of blocks. Too bad we didn't get a picture before it inadvertently got knocked over :-)

Listening though seems to go from bad to worse to non-existent with an infant in the house. While I was putting Noah to be a couple nights ago, Fredrica was trying to get Isabella to eat dinner. 45 minutes... over and over again... asking, telling, demanding, yelling.

Finally as I got Noah to sleep and Fredrica finally got Isabella to finish her dinner... Fredrica went in to lay down.

Isabella has taking some medicine that didn't taste very good so I can been giving her a little chocolate milk to hide the medicine. As I was handing the chocolate milk to her, Isabella very confidently said:

"No daddy, I can't have chocolate milk. I wasn't a good listener before"

Amazing... now she is listening :-)

Little Piglet

After Noah's 10 day checkup, our pediatrician wanted to keep an eye on Noah's weight gain because it was on the low side of normal.

We took Noah in for his 4 week appointment... and oh my gosh has he gained weight! Almost 9 pounds now... and you can feel it carrying him around.

Not surprisingly, he's been eating a lot... which means mom and dad haven't been getting a lot of sleep. We are starting to figure out the tricks to extend 2 hour intervals between feedings to 3 (the difference of about 1 hour of sleep at a time to 2). Its no consistent yet, but about half the nights are going more smoothly.

Noah likes to be heart-to-heart when you are putting him to sleep Whether laying vertically on your chest or horizontally... he likes that close contact.

He is pretty amazing.