Thanksgiving Week

We had a great week of celebration for Thanksgiving. We are of course very thankful for our wonderfully crazy family, we are thankful for job security for both Tony and I in this difficult economy, and thankful for all that God has provided us with. We are truly blessed in so many ways.
Tony was off work for the entire week and we had a great time. Thanks to an early Christmas present from Nana, we were able to use our new museum membership to check out the new Science & History museum. It is awesome and the kids loved it. We put up our Christmas tree a little early since we knew we would be too busy over the weekend and Sam had been asking for over a week if we could get it out. On Wednesday, we held true to our tradition and made our pre-Thanksgiving visit to see Santa (no lines). Sam told him he wants a Rudolph book and some "surprises." We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with my family, including my Dad and step-mom here from Ohio for the week. We hung out all day Friday with Tony's family and had another Thanksgiving dinner with them including Wendy's family from Houston.

We are indeed excited about Christmas. Tony and I love Christmas so much and are always anxious to get the decorations up and our extensive collection of Christmas CDs out. It has been an endless loop of "Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer", "The Chipmunks Song", "Linus & Lucy", "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph" in our car.

Sam is starting to show more interest in Clara now that she is awake a little more.

Clara's first bottle

The pulling of the wishbone w/ Jack

Sam had lost the day before at my mom's and was pretty upset, but he won this one and was very proud.

Reese, Ollie, Sam & Jack in Kiki's tub. Looks like there's still room for one more.

New Christmas PJs...and nightcaps?

We started the "Elf on a Shelf" tradition this year. Sam named him "Candy Cane." So far it works like a charm. Yesterday, I walked in on Sam telling him that Ollie had gotten in Clara's pack n' play and sure enough there was Ollie sitting in the pack n' play. This morning when Sam woke up and found him positioned here, he said "that's dangerous, he's sitting on a candle!"

Clara at One Month

Seems like everyone always says this, but, I cannot believe she is already one month old. How much our lives have changed. In good ways, of course.
Here are her one month stats from her doctors visit today. She is 9 lb 2 oz (50%) and is 22 3/4" long (90%). She is definitely long and lean, very long legs, arms, fingers and toes. She definitely got her Daddy's long toes! And she looks a lot like Ollie did at this age. Her hair is still dark, but I'm pretty sure it will change to blonde and her eyes are blue and getting lighter.

I could not resist showing her very girly sparkly band aid she got after her shot today.

Ollie still loves his "Baby"

A few new pics

Tony has been after me to post some new pics of Clara. She will be 4 weeks on Friday so I was planning to wait til then. But here are some I took earlier this week.

Things are actually going as smoothly as they can at this point. She is nursing well and gaining weight. She is sleeping at night about as well as can be expected at this age. I feed her just before I go to bed at ~ 11:00 and then she usually wakes at 2:30 and again ~6:30. She goes right to sleep after eating without any trouble. To me that's pretty good. I try to squeeze in a nap for me during the day when I can, but I am not really that tired considering it all. I guess moms just get used to functioning on less sleep :)

I have started taking the boys to school in the morning and Tony is picking them up. I just slip Clara into the Moby wrap (which I love and highly recommend!!) and have my hands free to deal with the boys. Plus she is more protected from all the germy hands that want to touch her at school.

We even went out to the zoo last Friday to enjoy the lovely weather we were having. It was a shorter trip than usual, but it was a success. Our first big extracurricular outing!

I'll try to post more after her 4 week check up.

A Happy Halloween

We had a very nice Halloween. We all went out trick or treating, even Clara in the Moby wrap. They all did great. Sam was totally into it and Ollie caught on pretty quick. Ollie walked right into a few houses and wanted to "chat" with the people. All in all it was a really nice night!

Our little pumpkin

Buzz & Woody

Checkin' out their loot

I don't know who thinks black icing is ever a good idea...

Introducing...Clara

She's here!! Clara Mae Norris arrived @ 1:23 PM on October 23rd. She weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She and mommy are doing great. We got home on Sunday and are adjusting to our new life as a family of 5!!! That sounds crazy!

Ollie is doing well with Clara. He constantly points to her saying "baby" and trying to say her name. When she is in her crib he is very concerned, wanting to know where she is. He touches her gently and has not yet shown any sign of jealousy, which has surprised me. I had a c-section so I will not be able to pick him up for a while, so that will be hard I'm sure. Tony is here to help, so I know we'll get through it. Sam's interest in her waxes and wanes, he's all about him right now, I guess.

We spent our first day at home taking the whole family to the pediatrician. Clara needed a weight and billirubin check since she is a little jaundice. We would have tried to go without the boys but they both needed flu shots. So we just ripped that band aid right off and took our first voyage out with 3 kids. It went well. We ended up making 4 trips to the pediatrician in 5 days for weight and billirubin checks for Clara and more shots for the boys (H1N1). Finally, Friday her billirubin had dropped and her weight was better at 7 lb 4 oz. However, it seems that she probably has the same milk protein allergy that Ollie has. As soon as she cleared all the myconium out (and boy did she) her poop was green and mucousy, just like Ollie's was. But, we caught it a lot earlier than with him, so maybe we can skip all that fussing associated with it. But, it means no milk or cheese for me :(

The Norris girl's Nest

Here are pics of our newest addition's room. I am trying the delayed posting for the first time, so hopefully by the time this posts, she will be here!!!

These white dressers were red, which Tony painted before Sam was born. He tried to strip them before he repainted them white, but was unsuccessful. So he just painted over the red. They turned out okay, I told him they kind of had a Shabby Chic look. He was not familiar with this term, but he now uses it to defend anything he works on that doesn't turn out quite perfect..."Its Shabby Chic"

We also, as mentioned before, had to buy a new crib. I promised Tony we would not speak of this anymore, but its too weird not to share. Long, gross story short....Our old crib, which was in perfect condition (on the outside) after making it through 2 boys, no scratches, no bite marks, nothing. Tony had been insisting that the crib was making "noises" for a long time now. I thought he was just being his normal neurotic self (sorry babe). Turns out there were wood boring beetle larvae eating the crib on the inside!!!!! After some Internet research we have determined that the eggs for these things were probably in the wood before the crib was ever manufactured. The crib went to the dump and we bought a new one that actually just arrived a week and a half ago. This one will turn into a full size bed, so at least we will still get some long term use out of it.







I had to share this picture of Ollie. He pulled this book (please note the title) off the shelf and was looking at it. I guess he was trying to study up before his sister arrives.

The stork's flight has been delayed...

Well, I just received a phone call from Women's Services at Baylor Southwest notifying me that they had to reschedule my C-section for Friday Oct 23, it was supposed to be tomorrow morning. I must admit, I was pretty bummed out, but I'll get over it. Stay tuned...