Little Fishies

This has been a banner summer for our little fishies at the neighborhood swimming pool!  We'll start from the oldest and go from there...  Katie's swimming skills have greatly accelerated since last year.  She LOVES swimming in the big pool, where she can jump in unassisted and swim several lengths underwater (no floaties, with goggles) in three feet.  She hasn't yet found the confidence to do the same in deeper waters, but she is starting to learn actual strokes at her swimming class.  So, who knows where we'll be next summer!

Michael, who traditionally has avoided the swimming pool like the plague, has come out of his shell over the last month.  He is now willing to enter the big pool with a parent, float on his back with assistance, and will even go underwater (but gets a little scared doing so).  There is hope for him yet!  Next year he will be able to touch the bottom of the pool in three feet, so we expect some real progress.

And, finally, Neve is finally getting into the act!  We took her into pool water for the first time today, and she was such a natural!  She didn't flinch at all with the cold water, liked "standing" on the pool steps, and enjoyed swimming around with Daddy.  She never once complained and just enjoyed the ride.  It's nice to know that we'll be able to take her in on the really hot days remaining this summer!

Simple Math

People ask us all the time who we think Neve looks like.  It's simple math really:  K + M = N.  Add a good dose of Katie's beautiful eyes and mouth to Michael's overall brilliant coloring, and you've got our third kiddo.  (They do all have distinctly different noses, so we'll have to see how that shakes out in the teenage years.)  Take a look at the photos above, all roughly taken at age 4-5 months.  

Anyway, speaking of our little Neve-ster, she had Round 2 of her check-ups/vaccinations this morning.  Overall, the appointment went really well, with Neve passing all of the usual tests (following an object with her eyes, standing on my lap, blah, blah).  We talked a bit about her seemingly early stranger anxiety, and the doctor assured us that it does show up earlier in girls.  We are just "lucky" enough to be seeing it about as early as it comes, ahem.  (Seriously, she was even afraid of Daddy after all of his travels this past month.)  One funny thing:  When the doctor asked me if Neve was rolling over yet and I said "No," she just smiled and said that she wasn't worried about it, based on the histories of our other two children.  You know your kids are late at hitting milestones when everybody else notices the pattern! 

But, everything did check-out OK, and the little gal is growing like a weed.  Her measurements are as follows:  Weight - 15 lbs, 6 oz. (74th percentile) and Height - 26 inches (96th!).  You know how we like it here...tall and sturdy!

A Tale of Two Nevies

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...  Such an apt statement regarding our newly-minted four-month-old!  Our little baby girl has definitely grown up over the past month, but that doesn't mean there weren't hiccups along the way.  On her worst days of fussiness, it seemed like there were two Nevies:  the nighttime one, where she slept without a stir for 11-12 hours; and the daytime one, where she would sometimes feed every hour and demand to be held at all times.  By the end of the day, we were just exhausted.  But, that doesn't mean that she hasn't also been changing for the better.  (As a matter of fact, we believe that the fussiness coincided with various spurts, both physical and mental.)  She now looks way bigger than a month ago, can lift and hold her head easily, and loves to grab and gnaw on her toys.  She has her check-up on Monday, so we'll see if the doctor confirms our suspicions:  the poor little gal has just been growing like crazy in every way, and she didn't want us to forget it!

So Close

On Wednesday night, Mike enjoyed a belated Father's Day gift and took in a Nationals game with friends Eric, Kelly, and Bryan.  Eric splits a season ticket package with some colleagues at work, so we had stellar seats in the second row, halfway between the third base dugout and the LF foul pole.  Definitely the closest that Mike had been to the action in a major league ballpark!


Anyway, it was a great boys night out and the Nats managed to pull out the win.  As luck would have it, the game was televised on ESPN and Mike and Bryan snuck in two prime-time cameos during a couple of the foul balls hit their way.  Here's one of the images from a short-hop line drive caught by the guy directly in front of Mike.  Sorry about the image quality...

Blue golf shirt and khaki shorts, in case you were wondering.

In addition to adding 10 pounds, apparently the camera takes away about two inches of hair!

Mass Pandemonium

It's hard to believe, but there was once a time when Traci could get together with her Mom's Club friends and have a relaxing time.  We would leisurely spread out a blanket, plop our tiny first infants down with their toys, and pretty much just gab with each other.  Whooo-boy, those days are gone!  Now, each of of us have at least two or more likely three kids, and our get-togethers are CERRR-RAY-ZY!

This morning, five of us got all of our kids together for a bit of bowling.  There were 13 kids on hand, ranging from the age of six years to four months.  Some had never bowled before, but all were excited to give it a go (at least at the beginning).  However, by the time we got the bowling shoes on everybody, got the screens all set up with the kids' names, and secured enough extra-light balls, some of the younger kids got restless.  The next thing we knew, we had the 5-6 year-olds ferociously trying to play by the rules, the 2-3 year-olds roaming aimlessly towards the arcade or pushing all the buttons on the scoring screens, and the 0-1 year-olds just wanting to be fed.  By the time we left, I think every mom just needed to go home and shower and nap.

That's just another playdate with our crazy crew!  Thanks again for the laughs, guys!

Katie Lately

We usually like to give an update on each of the individual kids somewhere close to their 1/2 birthday point.  We are a little late with the Katie edition; but her 1/2 birthday falls directly on the Fourth of July, so give us a break....:)

LIKES:  Sticker books, Anything animal-related, Playdates (especially drop-off ones!), Taking care of Neve, Visiting her extended family, Sweets (especially ice cream and cheesecake)

DISLIKES:  Making her bed, Anything she considers "too baby-ish," Clean-up time, Her brother disrupting her sleep, Sharing "HER" toys with Michael, Working on her reading skills

NEW SKILLS:  Whistling (very faintly), Sight reading, Making friends with everybody in the room, Mastering all apps on the Kindle, Swimming under water with no floaties (in 3 feet), Retrieving the mail (her new big-girl job), Fastening her seatbelt

Ahhh-Choo!

One of the hardest parts of transitioning to three kids has been finding the time (and energy) to give each of them one-on-one attention.  Katie benefits in the afternoon when the other two are sleeping.  And, of course, Neve has certain demands that cannot be ignored.  Admittedly, Michael sort of gets the shaft in the attention department.  So, we take advantage of every opportunity we can to show him the love as well!  Today, Katie went over to a neighbor's most of the afternoon, and Mike ran an errand with Neve.  Traci and Michael stayed home to build some awesome towers (Michael's latest obsession) in the living room.  We had a blast erecting them, blowing them over with our "sneezes" (ahhhhh-choooo!), and climbing all over the mess.  Later, we converted the towers into a long bridge, where we had to avoid the "freezing, cold water."  Finally, we had jumping contests off the ottoman into all of the cushions.  I don't know who was more tired at the end of some "boy play."

Sleep Training 3.0

Sigh...it's that time in life again...  Neve has been giving us many hints lately to let us know that she just isn't happy about staying up late anymore.  We were more than happy to oblige with moving up her bedtime, but that also meant that we would need to start sleep training (letting her cry-it-out).  We were going to wait until she officially turned 4 months next week, but we just decided to go for it this evening.  We started by giving her a quiet feeding at 8:30, after the bigger kids were down.  Unfortunately, she fell asleep then and didn't wake up much, even with Traci jostling her.  But, we figured she would wake back up sooner or later.  About 45 minutes later, she did cry out; and we feared that the sleep training would be even more difficult after a quick nap.  Thankfully, she only went on crying for another half hour (with us visiting her from time to time) before she truly settled down for the night.  Not bad, but we'll see how tomorrow goes.  Now she'll really be in on what we're doing!  Anyway, it was actually quite nice to be able to get some stuff done in the evening rather than tending to a fussy baby.  Here's to regaining some our me-time again!!

PS - We all wanted to shout out "Happy 70th Birthday, Papa!!!  We love you!!!"

Exersauce Time!

Neve has been demonstrating a lot more head control and interest in "standing," so we pulled the ol' exersaucer out of the attic one last time.  I had only planned to plop her in it for a minute or two, but she actually enjoyed herself.  She liked chewing on the hanging frog near her face and pulling on the orange castle thingie.  She ended up spending more than 5 minutes in it, which isn't too shabby for a 3-month-old.  Now if we could just keep her brother and sister out of it!

Fireworks Never Ended

What a week, what a week...  We apologize for being away from the blog for so long, but it was truly an extraordinary week, filled with fireworks (expected and unexpected).  Let's back up to last Friday evening...  Just after the family all went to sleep, Mike and Traci were woken up by the fiercest storm they had ever encountered in their lives.  Weathermen always comment that you can't mistake the sound of a tornado:  it seems like you are about to get hit by a locomotive.  That is exactly what the wind sounded like that night.  Luckily, we did not actually have a tornado, but the tree damage and power outages sure felt like it.  Thankfully, none of us were hurt and the kids slept through everything.  Since our power was going to be out for the foreseeable future, we all packed our things a few days early and headed up to PA for the week.

Once there, we settled in for a nice time with Traci's extended family.  As was already planned, Katie peeled off from our family unit to stay by herself for the first time with Grammy at Grandma Morrison's farm.  She had a blast, reliving some of the very things Traci did as a kid.  We are so proud that she never once needed us.  Hopefully, we can make that adventure an annual thing!  The rest of us stayed at Papa's, relaxing for the first part of the week and then gearing up for holiday festivities in the latter part.

By Tuesday, our plans kicked into full swing with an outdoor live music party with some dear, old friends.  The evening started out well enough, with Traci introducing her family to many buddies.  She was especially excited to catch up with her "big bro" who now coaches basketball at Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii.  He had some fun stories about meeting Coach K and other big-time coaches at last year's Maui Invitational.  We also had fun introducing our two babies (Brooks and Neve) who immediately clicked and laid on their baby blanket, holding hands.  Unfortunately, the evening took a turn for the worse, as more thunder storms kicked in, squashing the party.  Everybody had a hard time falling asleep that night, as the kids were scared of the thunder/random fireworks that never seemed to cease.

Finally, it was time for the big event:  Brockway's Old Fashioned Fourth of July!  We didn't know what to expect as the humidity and the prior night's lack of sleep loomed large.  Luckily, our kids are troopers and enjoyed as much of the playground/visiting/etc. that they could.  We all took some afternoon naps and rallied for the 3-hour parade held in the evening.  The older kids had a blast diving for thrown candy, waving their flags at the marching bands, and playing with their dear cousins, Nicholas and Julian.  Neve was an absolute angel, taking it all in from her car seat or Grammy's lap.  The night ended early for our family, with a few sparklers.  They just aren't ready for the big-time fireworks yet...

On our last day in PA, all of the cousins visited a nearby lake to shake off some of the overwhelming heat.  (Did we mention that Papa's house didn't have air conditioning?  ARGH!)  The kids LOVED the clear water and soft sand (no waves!).  They spent their time building sand castles, fishing for minnows, and eating a picnic feast, while Neve hung in the shade.

What a fantastic week, filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows...  (Did we mention the oppressive heat??)  Thanks again to Traci's parents for giving us much-needed respite from the Virginia power outages.  Hope everybody else had a wonderful Fourth as well.  Please feel free to check out our pictures from the week to the right!