Blessing Day

Today Cole blessed Claire in church. She wore the same dress as Macie and Tessa did and looked as darling as ever. I whipped together her little headband the night before and she was good to go. Although we didn't have any family in town, we were able to have a few friends from another ward come so that was nice. There's an abundance of pictures for your viewing pleasure! (Don't miss out on her killer smile a few pics down - the flash made her smile!)

My Birthday

My birthday was great. After I got Macie to school and the little ones busy with a movie upstairs, I took a nice long nap on the couch - definitely the best thing to do on my birthday at 8:30am!! The rest of the day was easy going and low key- just the way I intended to keep it.

Cole came home from work early, at 4:30, which was fabulous. The kids surprised me with balloons and a cake and some homemade cards. Then we went to our local Friendly's restaurant for dinner and the kids were very well behaved. Our waitress was a Asian woman named Apple. Very sweet, but very talkative. When Cole told her it was my birthday she asked if I was 19! Not sure if that was a compliment or not, but at least to her I looked younger than 27. She also said I look like Jennifer Aniston, so I think I really like her.

We had cake at home and it was a nice relaxing day!

Cold Harbor Battlefield

On Labor Day we took a quick drive to a nearby battlefield. We visited the Cold Harbor Battlefield Visitors Center and did the walking tour and driving tour which had site markers along the way to explain and tell stories.

The 1864 Cold Harbor Battle was deemed one of the deadliest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War. I'm pretty sure I read that in about one hour there was 7,000 fatalities with around 15,000 fatalities throughout the 2 week battle.

Here is a picture of the "earthworks" or trenches along the walking trail. Cole and I both agreed that there was a different feeling as we walked the trail learning about the battles and bloodshed. It was kind of eerie, sad, and humbling. Tessa was singing "I am a Child of God" to herself almost the whole walk. She sang one phrase in particular over and over again - "lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way"- and it sent chills up my spine thinking about these men who must have been thinking this same thing as they waited in the trenches and fought just hoping their lives would be spared and that they would see their families again.

We also visited the nearby Cold Harbor National Cemetery. It was beautiful with all the matching white headstones. Then we ended our day with a picnic. We really loved this experience and there are many many more battlefields we hope to visit here.

One Month

Claire is now one month old. She's a darling little thing and she's putting on weight and her thighs are getting kinda chubby which I love (at 2.5 weeks she was 75% for height and weight).

4 Weeks:


Claire is a fairly good natured child. She tolerates all the hugs, kisses, and touching from her siblings quite well. We enjoy seeing her random, unintentional smiles -usually when she is sleeping- and hearing her very few but adorable coos. She is awake more often now which is fun. Her eyes are still very dark and I'm not quite sure what color they'll be. She sleeps pretty well at night now and is up only once or twice depending on what time she goes to sleep. That does make her sound like a fabulous baby (which she is), but she does have her periods of fussiness from about 7-10pm, or 11 or 12 - see, she's a normal baby! She's looks a lot like Macie did when she was a baby. She's wonderful and we love her!

Dominic kisses Claire with much more force than his sisters, but his intentions are good as he looks at her affectionately and says she's cute when he does it. He's made several requests for her to sleep with him, so I've taken her up to his bed a few times for him to cuddle her in his bed - It lasts about 30 seconds and then he says he's done, but it's very sweet nonetheless.

3 Weeks:

Tessa can not get enough of Claire. She is always wanting to hold her, kiss her, or gently touch her cheek and say things like "hi princess", "she's so cute", and "she likes me". Anytime Claire cries Tessa will let me know. She also loves to put blankets on Claire, and put Binky's in her mouth. I'm glad that she hasn't been jealous at all!

Macie is the best big sister. She of course loves to hold Claire, rock her, burp her and talk to her. She's a fabulous help with Claire and I couldn't be more grateful for that.

2 Weeks:

1st Grade

Macie started 1st grade this week. Oh, how I miss her during the day. Well, I don't miss the whiney "what can I do", but most of that is solved being gone at school, then doing homework, piano and free time after school.

Things I miss about Macie when she is gone:
Her smile.
That she likes to surprise me by cleaning her room, Dominic's room, and my room without being asked.
Her help with the other kids - everything from protecting Claire from the little ones, getting Tessa down from the table to being willing to play batman with Dominic.
Listening to her read to me or the little kids- it makes me happy.
Cuddling up next to her on the couch while the kids are napping and sharing some ice cream straight from the carton.
Doing crafts and little projects together.
She can be a fun little gal to hang out with.

School is going very well despite the newness of it all. She did amazingly well her first day and didn't cling, cry or hide her face when we took her to her classroom (a first for her for pretty much anything new). She even left Dominic with the advice to "be good and to help mommy while I'm gone." Isn't she sweet!
There is only one other kid in our church ward that goes to her school and it happens to be a girl in her primary class and they ended up in the same school class- lucky!! She's met lots of friends and things seem to be going great so far.
I feel so blessed to have such darling and special little kids!!

Claire

I wanted to try my hand at taking some cute and more artistic pictures of Claire for her baby announcement. Here are a few of my favorites- she was one week old.

Toothless

Macie lost her first tooth this week. She's been working on wiggling a different loose one on top, but the bottom one had another tooth growing in behind it making it very loose. Cole did the final pull. There were a few tears and blood. The tooth fairy brought her a dollar and left it in her little tooth bag that Macie and I made together recently.