More Estella Pictures

My camera is still not working so I am borrowing a friends old one so I haven't been as picture happy as I would normally be. I'm so bummed as I know I'm missing Estella's newborn moments that I'll never get again. So sad. Here are a few pictures we have taken though.

Mama and daughter

My midwife and me with little Estella

I am so thankful to have had the same midwife for all three of my children. Even when I am screaming at her, "NO, I don't want to push!", she stays calm, takes it all in stride and encourages me anyway.

Uncle Bill with his first niece

Grandpa Graham with his oldest grandchild and his youngest grandchild.

Made even more special that they are both girls and both born on the exact same day!

Yep, Estie decided she wanted to share Alex's birthday, so they are exactly 19 years apart.

Stay tuned; there will be more of our little Estie coming soon!

Eleven Days New

Our Beautiful Baby Girl

Our whole household is simply smitten by our sweet little Estie. Lukas loves to kiss "his baby" and talk in a little baby voice to her, (not that that is too much different than his real life voice). Nikolas, surprisingly, has also been caught stroking her head and talking sweet to her. He even held her today!

I find it hard to believe that I am actually dressing my baby in pinks and putting bows in her hair, but I am! She looks so incredibly cute, how could I not?

She's awake, don't blink or you'll miss her eyes!

She is definitely fitting the old saying, "sleep like a baby" as she is awake for about 3 hours a day. Now the nights are a little different. Actually, she does pretty well for a newborn, but waking every 2 hours to nurse seems to come so much quicker at night than during the day.

And lest you all think we are ignoring our boys during this time, here is a picture of Nikolas with his dinosaur egg carton craft we did today. They both were pretty happy with their creations and spent at least 20 minutes roaring and swinging their tails at each other.

Estella Erlene Has Arrived!

Our baby girl decided to come 2 weeks early!

She was born on February 3rd at 4:49pm. She was not due until February 16th, but my babies seem to like arriving unexpectedly for some reason.

If you have seen my facebook page then you have seen these pictures, and unfortunately, they are the only pictures, with the exception of the last two, that we have of our hospital stay:( My fancy camera, with my new flash from Christmas, went bonkers and wouldn't take any flash pictures at all, so they are all blurry. Thankfully, my friend Melinda brought her new camera and she captured these pictures which turned out perfect. Thanks so much Melinda!!!!!

I can't believe she was inside me just hours earlier, how did she fit?! Now I know why I was feeling her foot in my rib cage at the same time as I felt her head....elsewhere.

"What do I do with a girl?!"

Nice and plump and fresh from the womb. And still gooey.
She weighed 7lbs. 14 oz. and was 20 inches long. She was bigger than both her brothers, taller than Lukas and the same height as Nikolas when they were born. Thankfully, her head was small like Nikolas, and unlike Lukas, so she just popped right out! I have come to realize that it doesn't matter in childbirth how much they weigh so much, it matters how big there noggin is.


My dad and Sue had the boys for the past 4 days while we were going in and out of the hospital and then while we had little Estie. The boys loved being with their Grandma and Grandpa and Tone' and I are so thankful we have them close by to help us in such a big way.
When Dad and Sue brought the boys to meet their new little sister their reaction surprised me. They were both so interested in her and for quite a while as well:) They sat up next to me and proceeded to point out all of her little body parts and ask me all sorts of personal questions like, "Mommy, can I see where she came out of?" "Um, no Nik, you can't."


Some other funny comments were:

Nik: "Can I see her girl parts?"

Lukas: "Why do you still have a baby in your tummy?" (Thanks kid)

Lukas: "Did the baby come out of your bellybutton? " (I wish)


It has been so sweet to watch my boys being gentle with her and interested in her and quite proud to be her big brothers. Today at church we walked into their Sunday School room and Lukey immediately ran up to a little buddy and pulled his arm toward Estella saying, "Come see my new baby!!!" They both love to point out her arrival to everyone and have been wearing their new Big Brother shirts proudly, which, of course, I have no pictures of yet.

Baby Estie is now 3 days old and is doing wonderfully. I am recovering quite quickly as this labor went so much smoother than the last two. I could have a few more at this rate:)

Hopefully I'll get my camera figured out soon so I can get some close up shots of our little girl. She looked especially sweet today dressed up for church. I can't believe I have a girl!

A Quick Glance At Christmas

This is a bit late to be posting about our Christmas crafts we did the last half of December, but I wanted to have a record for next year so I don't have to reinvent the wheel for myself.

We managed to do a craft or activity nearly everyday of December and it was great! Lukas loved it especially and now is constantly asking to do "crafts, Mama!". So now I need to get busy and come up with monthly sets of crafts to do, oh boy. My brain hurts thinking about it. With a new baby coming, though, I can see the benefit of having some preplanned crafts ready to go for those jealous moments when I'll be taking care of baby sister.

Marble Painted Tree

Lukas thought this was pretty cool. You just put a cutout of something on a cardboard lid with a dollop of paint or three and then give them a marble to roll around and it decorates the cutout beautifully. And doesn't require a major clean-up like when typically using paint!

My little helper.

We made sugar cookies and then frosted them, or should I say, they frosted one each and then I frosted the rest. I don't really know why I keep making sugar cookies as neither of my boys like the cookie part, just the icing. Really, then, it's because I discovered the absolute best sugar cookie recipe in the history of the world from my friend, Emily. The cookies turn out perfect every time and are the perfect amount of crunch on the edges and soft and moist on the inside. YUM!!!

Of course, we had to have some play fighting with homemade crowns and swords. Not sure if that fit in with Christmas, though it was the correct form of weapons for the time of Jesus. So that counts, right? Hmmm, maybe the Roman soldiers and Peter when he was defending Jesus?

One night we loaded the boys into the car and tried finding the Christmas ships. We missed them on the Willamette, so tried to catch them on the Columbia, but apparently the Columbia is a lot longer and the boats are not in any hurry as we never saw them. So instead, we went to Peacock Lane, which was much closer and probably more fun for the boys. Live and learn.

I'd reccommend parking a few blocks away and then walking there, if you were thinking of doing this next year. The traffic to drive through stretches forever and then you have walkers in front of the houses blocking your view. We parked and walked and it was great and Lukas loved it. Nikolas, on the other hand, is in a fun stage of not wanting to participate in ANYTHING right now, so he was miserable the whole time.

Large to Small Tree Building

They were supposed to build their Christmas tree going from large on bottom to small on top. Fun craft and a learning tool as well. Nikolas did great, and actually participated, and Lukas did pretty good for his age.

"Stained Glass" Window Trees

Paper Plate Angels

Obviously, I helped Lukas with the head. Not that it is great, but it would've ended up with scribbles for a head otherwise.

Making a nativity scene with stickers

Christmas Eve at the Grandparents

Yes, Nik is probably picking his nose. It seems to be a requirement for him as soon as a camera is pointed his way. Which is why he isn't included in many posts. He might be thankful for that when he is older.....or bummed.....could go either way really....

8 Months Down, 4 Weeks To Go

Not a great picture of me, but it is pretty much how I am feeling right now with less than 4 weeks until baby comes. Tired and exhausted are a couple words I could use to describe myself currently. I have even been napping the last few days when I can sneak it in, which is entirely out of character for me. I am not one to sit for more than 5 minutes at a time without getting up to do something, but now my body is forcing me to sit more and nap more. It has been helping me to stay somewhat on track with my latest committment to read the Bible in 90 days, though!
I am pretty close to being ready for this little girl to appear as I have been madly clearing out the baby room, getting things organized in the garage, washing all the baby paraphanelia, setting up the co-sleeper and crib, and making a pile to take to the hospital with us. I have also been making a few freezer meals and have plans to make more, hopefully! My latest project has been decorating the baby's room. My good friend, Sheri, came over last Saturday and painted the cutest tree with swirl branches on the wall over the crib. It looks so good! She is coming back to paint a swirlly branch out of the window and then we are going to add some owls to the branches of both. It has been so much fun to think about decorating a little girls room:) When it is all done I'll post pictures, for sure!

I'll keep you all posted should we have an early arrival!

Hunting For The Christmas Tree

Christmas Crack

Nikolas bearing the firstborn responsibility of carrying the saw.
He was quite proud of himself:)

Where's Lukas?!

Nikolas claimed this tree,
too bad it was too short for mommy's standards.

Talk about a happy boy!

The farm we went to has a little barn with two "reindeer", a llama and some other creature I can't remember right now. Nik liked them, but Lukas, our little horse fan, wouldn't even go inside the barn.

Nikolas helping to decorate the tree.

and Lukas as well,
though he would have nothing to do with the lower half of the tree.

The finished product!

Why is it that a tree can look perfect at the farm
but once inside the imperfections become glaringly obvious?

I'm going to just admit here that this was a bit hard for me to relinquish control of the tree decorating. I was given the task of decorating the Christmas tree when I was 15 and no longer had a brother or sister at home to help. (Not that I remember John ever decorating the tree...but maybe), so then when I married I happily took over decorating the tree to my own liking. After 8 years of marriage before children I had a system and a certain way I wanted the tree to look. Now that the boys are a little older and actually want to help I want to encourage that attitude of helpfulness, but it makes me cringe a little as they are reaching for the breakable ornaments or the ones of sentimental value. I know I don't have to let them hang the breakable ones, and I do steer them towards the paper and plastic versions, but I also don't want to be overbearing and make decorating the tree a stressful time. So I just repeat, "My boys are more important than things" over and over again......as the violin ornament my mom gave me when I played the violin gets dropped and bent.

My boys are more important than things.
My boys are more important than things.
My boys are more important than things.

My Christmas Craft Resolution

I started New Years early this year and made a resolution at the end of November that I would do a Christmas activity or craft everyday of December. I am happy to report that I have actually been keeping this resolution so far!

Here are some of our crafts we have done so far:

Tissue Paper Snowman

I just cut out the circles and attached the contact paper. They did the rest! (Though I did point to where Lukas should stick his carrot and hat) I think tissue paper crafts like this are my all time favorite craft. I always have the material on hand, they don't take much prep work and once I get the shape cut out and backed with contact paper I can move on to other things while they work on their creations for at least 15-20 minutes.

Cottonball Snowmen

Notice how the goofy looking one with the eye on its lower body and the hat upside down was created by the 4 year old. That is what the snowman would have looked like had Lukas not had me pointing to where things should go, but I figured that Nikolas would know where eyes belong and which way a hat goes. Apparently not. I like it, though, and next craft we do I'm leaving Lukas to his own devices:)

Hand Print Christmas Trees

I cut a tree shape out of paper bags and then had them paint their trees green. Then, while we waited for the paint to dry I traced their hands onto construction paper and then cut them out. They were in charge of gluing their hands to the tree.
I love how these turned out and they look really cute taped to our window. I'll be keeping these in their keepsake boxes for sure!

Reindeer Ornaments

This one is a pretty well known craft. They colored their sticks and then I put the hot glue on and they stuck everything together.

Hand and Foot Print Reindeers

This one is another keeper! I love their little handprints for the antlers:) Next time I would paste the hands behind the feet prints as then I could see their little toes as well.

We also did some easy Foamies crafts and have gone to look at some pretty fantastic Christmas lights as well as getting our tree the other day and decorating. I have a list of other crafts and activities I want to do in the coming days, and it's a good thing as Lukas has started asking for crafts now. He says, "We do crafts now, Mommy?" and then runs to my craft bins looking for things.
I really hope to stay motivated with this December resolution so if you have any cute and simple ideas for me to try let me know!

I found many of the craft ideas from various homeschooling blogs found here and here.