Fall Continued! 🍁🍂

The end of October and beginning of November were busy!! We’ve had our share of chilly weather (only one day with a super light dusting of snow, though!). 

This cutie in her little stocking cap almost makes me want coldweather! Almost.

Just shy of 4 months old, Norah decided it was time to get moving. She rolled first from her back to tummy, and basically the same day rolled tummy to back.

So proud.

On October 21, Norah turned 4 months old!

Bring on the blurry photos since she’s always moving unless she’s sleeping.

All 3 of our kiddos at 4 months!

Norah is our dainty little lady- the smallest of the 3 at this age. She weighed in at 15 lbs and was 24.5 inches long. Just 50th percentile for height and 66th percentile for weight! A peanut compared to bro (17 lbs and 26.5 inches at this age- sheesh!!) and sis (15.5 lbs and 25 3/4 inches).

October 24 was Hope’s 3rd birthday!! Can’t believe she is 3 years old!

Pink and purple cupcakes requested by the birthday girl!

She is the best present opener ever- she truly loves everything and is so happy with whatever she gets.

So happy to be the birthday girl!! And there were BALLOONS!! 🎈🎈

Some of my fave pictures of Hope. She is so fun, spirited, independent, kind, loving, helpful, sweet, sassy, and so stinkin’ cute! We love her so.

Jeremiah finished up soccer in October. We really had good weather for the majority of the season!

Except for his very last game- 30 degrees and windy! It was miserable! But, we are looking forward to more soccer in the spring! 😄

On October 29 we celebrated Norah’s baptism at our church! Such a special day, and we had both sets of grandparents in town and also Uncle Neil and Auntie Abby came for the church service, too.

 Norah is wearing the same special baptism dress as Hope did- made from my mom’s wedding dress!

I didn’t see it, but apparently when Pastor Scott started talking to her and about her baptism she just gave him this huge baby grin. So so cute!!

October 31- Halloween! 🎃👻

We actually did a few Trunk-or-Treats in the week or so prior and on Halloween. That’s definitely the way to go- trekking around the neighborhood in freezing weather? No thanks! This way you maximize your time- more candy in less time! 😊 J and H ended up with a small bucket of candy each- good enough!

Army guy, chicken, Jasmine 💗

Let’s see that chicken one more time! 😍

While the weather was still decent we wanted to try to get a good pic of the kids to use for a Christmas card since we didn’t have family pics taken this year. Isn’t THAT just so much fun??? Oh my heavens! I wanted to pull my hair out. I think we did end up with a good shot or two, thankfully.

Outtakes!

Hope is always a willing helper with Norah.

Here! Have more toys!!

And the first time in the exersaucer for the baby girl!

Big girl!

Big sister Molly snuggling with baby.

November 10 was a special day at Jeremiah’s school- Grandparents Day! Grandma and Grandpa Wiers and also Grandma Wissink came for the occasion. Jeremiah was so happy to have them all there!

(This was an outtake, Grandma Wiers- so hopefully I didn’t ruin your Christmas card! 😬)

November 21 Norah turned 5 months old! The time is flying! 😭

New trick- eating her toes!

That’s talent right there.

This girl had a big week this past week!

She lives life to the fullest! 🤣

I decided this week it was time for Hope to give up her pacifier. Yes, I know, loooooong overdue. But whatever. She had a rough day the first day- couldn’t fall asleep for nap, cried at bedtime (but after mommy singing to her she went to sleep pretty well). She asked for it maybe twice the second day, and really hasn’t had any problems since! Yay for our big girl! Maybe potty training will be next!?!? Ha.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving here at home this year (well, “quiet” with 3 kids 🤣). With Adam working every day surrounding the holiday, there really wasn’t time to travel to see family this year, unfortunately. 🙁 But Adam took J and H to see the movie “Coco”in the afternoon. It was Hope’s first movie in the theater!

Apparently she did well, and she’s already talking about going back to the popcorn place to see another movie! 😄

We cooked a small Thanksgiving dinner for us and Jeremiah- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, vegetables.... apple pie. So good. And Hope ate a roll, some shredded cheese, and some applesauce so 👍🏻. I have no idea where she gets her eating habits from!! 🤣

We got out our Christmas tree and and are excited to decorate tomorrow- looking forward to this Christmas season! 🎄❤️

Happy Fall! 🍂

We’ve been keeping busy and getting into our fall routine of school and activities! J has already completed his first quarter of 2nd grade! That means his report card will come home and we have Parent/Teacher Conferences coming up. The month of October gets quite busy after this week, so I figured I’d better update before I have too much going on- we have Hope’s 3rd birthday coming up (😭😭😭) as well as Norah’s baptism, Halloween, etc etc.

Looking back at my pics it looks like this fall has mostly been about Norah.... I guess because she’s cute and sits still and smiles for pictures? 😊

Hope is always a “big helper”. She wanted to help set the table, so her job was napkins!

Jeremiah loves, loves, LOVES his baby sister! He’s always quick to make her laugh and smile, it’s pretty sweet.

Already teaching her how to make silly faces!

Of course Hope loves her baby sister, too, and we hear “I want to make Norah ‘mile” about a billion times a day.

It’s fall and that means Hawkeye football! Adam works most Saturdays and has to miss a lot of the games on TV, but we still try to cheer them on!

Norah has the absolute best pouty face ever!! 😍

Yes, yes baby you can have whatever you want.

On September 21, Norah was 3 months old!

And next week already she’ll be 4 months old!

Jeremiah is currently about half-way through his soccer season, and he’s really enjoying it. He’s not the most aggressive on the team, but he gets some good kicks in there, gets LOTS of exercise, and does a lot of laughing and woo-hooing. 🤣

First game- almost 100 degrees!

J is on a team with a few boys from school which is so nice. Hope has gotten quite friendly with one of Jeremiah’s friend’s little brothers, Charlie. They are so cute! And Charlie always shares his popcorn.

Hope has been into braids again lately, and I attempted French braids for the first time!

I need to keep practicing. 😬

I just can’t get enough of the cheeks on this one!

One day, Jeremiah and Hope played together nicely! Without screaming or fighting! I had to capture it while it lasted.

On October 13 I got to be the guest reader in Jeremiah’s 2nd grade class (well, it was 1st and 2nd combined). I chose to read some books about pumpkins and made cut-out pumpkin cookies for the kids. So fun! 😄

And on the 14th, we spent the day in Chicago. Norah and I enjoyed a lovely baby shower for Auntie Abby! So excited to have a baby cousin in December!! 

That’s fall so far over here, we’re excited for what the next few weeks will bring!

🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂

Summer's End

Every year the summer goes by so quickly! This year especially seemed fast, as the first part was spent waiting around and prepping for Norah to arrive and the rest of the summer was spent adjusting to life as a family of 5! 

I yam cute. Ha ha! Norah is wearing the onesie we used in the picture we took to announce that I was pregnant:

 A few weeks before summer was over, Adam decided it would be good to take his week of vacation. Yay!! So he took Aug 7-13 off. We hit the road and spent half the week in Des Moines and half the week in Orange City. That was a nice way to break up the road trip across Iowa (the drive home was loooong... and made even longer because we had to drive separate cars, thank you Pizza Ranch).

We had such fun in Des Moines seeing friends and going to some of our favorite places from when we lived there! We miss it so much!

Splash pad, swimming, playing at the park, trampoline jumping, playing with friends etc etc etc. So much fun!

We had a nice time with Adam's family, too in Orange City the second half of the week. 

Norah and I had a girls night out with 2 of my besties!

Norah needs to work on her selfie skills!

The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and also playing at the park by Grandpa and Grandma's house.

The freshest picked sweet corn- so good!!

We headed home on Sunday morning, and like I said, wow it felt like it took forever! I lost count of how many times we stopped but I know we stopped for coffee (hee hee, that was for me), feeding Norah, lunch for the other 2 kids, diaper changes, feeding Norah, Jeremiah potty stop, putting pacifier in Norah's mouth, and gas.... whew. It was good to finally be back home!

The 15th was J's last day of summer break, and coincided with Adam's day off. So we made it a special day and went to the John Deere Pavillion (J's favorite place in the world!) and Sonic for lunch.

In preparation for school, we said good-bye to J's mohawk. I wasn't too sad to see it go!

Wednesday the 16th was Jeremiah's first day of 2nd grade! So far he is loving it!

Hope still doesn't love dropping J off and letting him be at school all day. She obviously thinks she should stay, too! Her favorite part of the day is picking J up and playing on the school playground.

8 weeks old!

Saturday the 19th we went to the last Enviro-Kids for Jeremiah- it was at the Bickelhaupt Arboretum  which is such a lovely place right in the middle of Clinton! We had never been there so I'm glad we went- it was a gorgeous day to walk around there.

Monday the 21st, Norah turned 2 months old! Whaaaa!!!!! She is losing her newborn-ness! :(

She is so so smiley, especially in the mornings! She sleeps for a good 5 hour stretch at night and then after I feed her will sleep again for another few hours. She's such a good baby! 

On the 22nd she had her well baby check-up and first round of vaccines.

She has no idea what's to come. :(

She decided that the oral vaccine was not to her liking so she proceeded to vomit EVERYWHERE. Seriously I have never seen so much vomit come from such a small body! Yeesh. The nurse had to consult the Dr about what to do, and he wanted her to keep trying to get it down. So we sat her up and the nurse gave her tiny bits of it and finally she kept it down. Phew.  Can't wait to do that again at 4 months! She screamed for the shots, of course, and turned quite a shade of red. But thankfully she calmed down pretty quickly and fell asleep, poor baby.

At 2 months Norah weighs 12 lbs 3 oz and is 23 1/4 inches long. She has gone from our hugest newborn to our smallest baby!  At 2 months, Hope was 12 lbs 13 oz and 23 1/2 inches long. And our giant baby Jeremiah was 13 lbs 6 oz and 24 1/4 inches long (holy cow!!). And all 3 at 2 months, because I love comparing my children:

It's pretty obvious who's who, but just in case- Norah on the left, Hope and her insane hair on the top right, and chubby baby Jeremiah on the bottom right. :)

This past Saturday I took the kids to a Touch-A-Truck event- fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity out at the Clinton Municipal Airport. Of course Jeremiah was in his element, he LOVES this kind of thing!!

Seriously is she not just the cutest stinkin' thing ever?!?!?

She also is quite fond of her big brother and big sister and gives them lots of smiles!

Love!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

 
 

 

Summer Highlights

Obviously the main highlight for our family this summer was the arrival of our sweet Norah!

Her belly button cord thing fell off when she was 1 week old, so that meant she got her first real bath!

She didn't mind it. We just gave her a bath last night, and oh my goodness she looks so tiny here in comparison to now! She is growing way too fast!!

4th of July!!

Norah was almost 2 weeks old! Adam had a super busy day at work, getting pizzas down to the river front for the Clinton 4th of July Festival. So this would be my first major outing on my own with all 3 kids. Whew, that's tiring! The heat and humidity didn't help much either! 

We got some pizza at the festival and then watched the 4th of July parade.

Parade shmarade. But doesn't she look festive?

We gave our double stroller its inaugural spin! My wonderful friend Natasha gave this to us since she's done with it. It is SO nice to be able to corral the girls (well, Hope, basically) and J can walk. (And no, Hope is not naked, but she is shirtless because of a snowcone incident).

From July 6-10 we had family in town! Grandpa and Grandma Wiers came to Clinton, as well as Matt, Cheryl, Josie, and Evan (who were beginning their trek back to California). It was so fun to have them all here!!! And the cousins had such fun playing together! 

We went to the Sawmill Museum (Jeremiah's request).

Train ride!

4 cuties having ice cream at DQ

We spent a day at Malone Park, which is about as close to a beach as we could get. The kids didn't seem to mind that it wasn't a REAL beach!

Jeremiah and Josie spent a lot of time trying to catch a fish! Jeremiah was slightly obsessed with this and had a slight meltdown when we tried to explain that it might not happen.

Success!!!

I believe Uncle Matt was the hero of the day.

Fun with sparklers!!

Matt, Cheryl, Josie, and Evan had to continue on towards Cali on the 10th. It's always so sad to say good-bye!!

Thankfully we only had to be sad for about a day, then Auntie Abby came from Chicago for the day to meet Norah!

July 14- our 10th wedding anniversary!!!

And thanks to friends who watched J and H, we even got to go out on a date! (Our 3rd wheel came along, of course).

Trying to get out and enjoy our summer weather as often as possible, since it will be gone all too soon! And trying to get a bit of excercise, too (I should have very strong arm muscles after pushing these 2!).