Winter Skills

Joey learns some valuable skills

so that we can sit around and enjoy fires like this.

Gracie Girl

Gracie is two and she is quite the talker. Often she's just chatting and we have no idea what she's saying   She's a little smartie girl too and actually can name all the letters.  Here's her cute little voice saying some letters.  

Hannah Smiles!

I peeked into her bassinet and found her giving those musical bears HUGE smiles!!!!

Hannah 7 weeks

A couple of Hannah lately

Snow Bunny

Her first smiles came to us last night. Sam really gets her smiling, I didn't get a great shot, but will try again today :)

He's Four Now

With the many outings I have made in the last four years I seem to always meet strangers admiring the circus that follows me and they always say, "watch out they will grow up fast".  I know there is much truth to that statement and I try so hard to enjoy all the daily moments (good and bad!) and yet I still find myself surprised that my baby boy who I once tried to imagine what he would be like when I saw his little bean like figure and rapid heartbeat in my 6 week ultrasound, is four years old!  

Josiah had a party at the Bouncy House!

 A Spiderman Party complete with spiderman cupcakes.

 And a few spiderman gifts! 

And of course Spiderman masks for each of his friends

 Happy Fourth Sweet Boy!

Our First Snow

I love snow! Growing up in Texas snow is not something you get to see. I love living in the beautiful state of Washington and love that we get snow which helps make the cold a little more tolerable! Tonight our first snow greeted us.  There is always something very magical about the first few snows of the season (I won't lie to you, it does lose much of it's magic by March).  For Josiah and Grace is was like Christmas morning to them and very fun to watch them play in it tonight! 

Halloween 2012

They were the cutest Spiderman,Tinkerbell and Giraffe I saw all night!

She's One Month Old

Hannah Joy is one month old!

Sure Wish our Aunti Kelli lived here to take a monthly picture of this little babe.  She's plumping up and getting those sweet roly poly arms that her sister had! :) Still haven't gotten any smiles out of her, but I know they're coming! 

Fun with Food

Just one reason Brian makes a super cool dad is because he often goes to the store and comes home with things that he thinks will bless the family that I may not have necessarily bought or thought would be a good idea.  Last night he came home with branch of Brussel Sprouts. He bought it not only because it was on sale but because it looked super cool, and he thought what kid wouldn't want to eat something that looked like this.  So sure enough Josiah was very excited to help me cook some brussel sprouts today and he actually ate them!!! :)

Gracie on the other hand wanted nothing to do with the little green cabbages. :)  

Happy Friday!

Fall Day

We took a stroll this morning to enjoy the fall weather and colors and we weren't disapointed (well Josiah was because the children's museum and the carousel were closed today). 

Hate to have to say goodbye to Grandad and Yiayia :(

And this babe is just growing and changing every day!

The Three

Hannah Joy is two weeks old and what a two weeks it's been! There has been alot of sleeping and laying around and watching episode after episode of Backyardigans or Nemo or Super Why.  Most everyone in this household has been sick at some point in the last 2 weeks! I was laid up in bed for three days healing from a uterin infection, mom nursed me back to health while cooking, cleaning and caring for all the kids! (She's my hero!)  Brian still managed to get the garage painted in the midst of it all.  We are finally starting to feel a bit more normal around here and just in time because Grandad comes to visit us on Thursday!  Everyone is getting used to have Hannah around. Josiah is a super sweet brother to her and Gracie is slowly coming around, but at least she's coming around.  Caught my three in a sweet moment yesterday.

Josiah likes to read to Hannah and bring her toys

My Three Cubs

Sisters!

These three are SO different from one another and we couldn't be happier to have them

September 25th, 2012

Hannah's Birth Story:
September 25th, 2012 became a day to remember.  I woke up that morning not feeling great and having contractions, but I figured they would eventually stop like they had been doing the past few weeks.  I went ahead and called my doctor that morning to change my appointment from Thurs. to that day because I hadn't been feeling baby move quite as much in the past few days and I just wanted to put my mind at ease that all was well in the womb.  For my peace of mind my sweet doctor had us take a look at her on ultrasound and make sure my fluids looked good and that she was doing well since her movement had decreased.  She did some sort of test and the baby failed the fetal movement test (can't remember official names of the tests). She just wasn't moving, but her heart rate and breathing looked great so I wasn't worried about her.  I spent about three hours at the docs office trying to get baby to move around for us and the longer I was there the more regular my contractions got (praise God!).  While they were monitoring me my doctor noticed I was having significant and regular contractions and I was now dilated to a 4 so she said, "How about we have a baby today!"  She had me go home pack my bag and come back to hospital where she broke my water and I just continued to labor on my own (my ideal situation!).  I got an epidural - thanked the Lord for modern medicine and continued to labor pain free while chatting with Brian and my bestie Johanna who was able to be with us. Then shortly after that I said\yelled, "the baby is coming!", my nurse got a bit stressed out as she wasn't quite ready for it to happen so fast, I told Brian he better get someone or do something because this baby was coming out - ha!  Doctor came and literally three pushes later there was a perfect little baby with a head full of hair laying on my chest.  It was for sure my "easiest" labor and delivery so far.  And our prayers were answered that baby girl would come before Grandpa and Nana had to leave!

Love Love Love her

Our third addition to this duo

gettin' love from her Aunti Jo

sweet little newborn face

Grandpa and Nana get to meet baby Hannah

Hannah Joy Ulrich

Hannah Joy Ulrich is Here!

September 25th, 2012

8 lbs 4 oz

21 inches long

 We have waited and prayed for this little babe for a long time and are so thankful to have her here with us.

Happy Fall

Fall means trying out new squash recipes!

It's like a new house, but not really...

This is a picture of our house Fall 2007 right after we moved in.

And now here it is five years later

Dearest Brian has put so much work into making our home beautiful, landscaping,, installing new windows that keep the winter drafts out, taking the ugly bars off the windows, keeping the bushes nice and trimmed.  I'll soon have pics of our slider door that he also recently put in.  Our hope is to get it all nice and fixed up and hopefully sell it next year -bittersweet, but mostly sweet...

The Transformation to the Girls' room

It's fun to own a house and be able to do projects and change things however you want.  Brian and I feel like with a third baby girl on the way we are starting to outgrow this house of ours.  We have officially moved Josiah to a downstairs room. It's been fun looking back on how this little baby room has changed over 4 years.  Here is Josiah's little blue and brown nursery with a Monkey theme.

18 months later we took out that baby crib and he had a big boy bed!

 3 months later we put that baby crib right back in the room and painted it a more neutral Green color as we awaited baby Grace's arrival.

 2 years after Grace's arrival the crib is stored and the room is now pink and brown as we now find ourselves waiting for yet another little sister!  So it's officially the "girls" room and soon that little white crib is going to find it's way into the room again!