It's almost here!

What is almost here, you are wondering? A very special day, a day when we become official homeowners. Tonight we have the walk through of the house to verify that everything is still ok and then Friday morning we head to the lawyer's office to close on our first home!! Don is so excited he already packed most of his clothes. He can't wait to move in and live with piles of boxes. He has forgotten about all the hard work ahead of us and is just looking forward to the house. I am trying to let his enthusiasm be contagious and not think about 12 hour days alone with two small children in the realm of chaos that will be our house for the first little bit.

But it is exciting to be able to finally call a place our home and to paint the walls. Although we are only painting two rooms to begin with, I already have a list of home improvement projects started. My mom is coming to help with things in two weeks once Don heads back to work. So hopefully in a month we will feel pretty settled. I know a lot of people can't wait to come try out the guest room, but remember there is only one bathroom for all of us.

We will try to post some pictures of our new home as soon as we get them. Maybe in the midst of painting this weekend Don can post some on the website. The internet should be ready to go by Friday and the modem supposedly arrived today. Things are moving along pretty quickly these days but I will try to catch up on some blogs in progress and to write one with a Jackie update since I haven't written about her lately. More to come soon on all fronts unless enthusiasm gets the better of me and I don't slow down to write updates.

~Tiffany

Ben's latest Stats

So we took Ben to his two month well baby visit on June 1. He has grown so much over the last month. He weighed 12 lbs 15.5 oz just over a week ago and was 22 3/4 inches long. That means that by now he is well over 13 lbs and will probably double his birth weight (7 lbs 9 oz) by  the end of his third month. And at that point he will probably weigh about half a Jackie. I think that is fairly impressive.

He also got the first full round of immunizations at his check up. He did his brave for each of the three needle pricks. He hardly cried, it was more of a "hey, that hurts people. Don't do it again." And then he was quiet. He had stopped crying after the last injection before I could even pick him up. 

And Ben is doing so well that we don't have to go back to the doctor until his four month well baby visit. 

Ben has also started smiling a lot. Those baby smiles are so wonderful and we also get wonderful little coos. Ben is also grabbing onto his toys and getting enjoyment out of them. He especially likes the little animal shaped chimes hanging on his basinet and laying on his back on the play-mat. Mirrors and lights also capture his attention for long periods of time. Ben is really starting to show us his sweet little personality and it is rewarding to see him blossoming.

~Tiffany

Photo Updates

Just to let everyone know there are new pictures up. Don was able to get them uploaded this weekend. There is one new gallery under the family tab and one under Ben's First Year. I am working on a couple of blog posts but haven't had much time to write on them the last few days. I will try to finish them soon.

~Tiffany

The Next Big Step

So we are about to take the next big step. We have the car, we have the kids (well at least two of however many there will eventually be), and soon we will have the house. That's right, we're buying a house! We put an offer on a house about two weeks ago and they accepted it outright without a counter offer. We were a little shocked that they did not counter but were very excited. The house inspection was last Tuesday and there were only a few things the inspector found that need to be fixed in the short term. So we will be moving on to the next step of the home buying process tomorrow night. We will sign the P&S (purchase and sale agreement) on Monday night and the closing will be in July. All in all the process has gone pretty well. There has been some of the requisite stress and there will probably be more before we close but we are really excited.

So I guess everyone would like a little information about the house itself. It was built in 1930 and is a cute "little" cape style house. The exterior is about the shade of green that we used in our wedding, just about the perfect shade for Don and me. The house has three bedrooms and an office. There is one bathroom that is downstairs and someday we will probably add a bath upstairs. There is a nice little vestibule with a coat closet that leads into the main living area. The living and dining rooms are open with a pellet stove in between them. The kitchen has been recently updated with nice cabinets and a Corian counter. There is tons of storage in the kitchen, I think there will be no problem fitting all my appliances in the kitchen pantry. I can't wait to start baking and cooking in my own kitchen. Just outside the kitchen in the hall is the little vintage telephone alcove. Across the hall are the steps upstairs and the door to the basement steps. There is also a linen closet in the hall and at the end of the hall is the bathroom with the office to the right and the guest room to the left. The master bedroom and the kids' room are upstairs with sky lights in each. The rooms follow the pitch of the roof so although they have nice floor space it is limited by the slant of the ceiling. There is a full basement where the laundry room is. Don's favorite feature is just outside the kitchen/back door: the Jacuzzi. My favorite feature is the cute little backyard. There is plenty of space for the kids to run around and still leave room for a small garden full of summer vegetables. There is no garden yet but that will be my project for next summer. At the back of the lot is a one car detached garage.

As soon as things are final with the house, we will post pictures. But we feel weird putting pictures of someone else's house and possessions on our website. We will however try to post a picture of the front of the house soon. However if you can not wait to see a few pictures of the interior then follow the link to the online listing of the property. Since the current owners posted those photos I don't feel quite as weird about sharing them.

We will keep everyone updated on the homebuying / moving process. We are very excited about where God is leading our family and what He is providing us with.

Ben's One Month Visit

Just a quick update on Ben. We had his one month Dr's visit on Monday. He now weighs 9 lbs 14 oz. Well really now he weighs more than 10 lbs because the other weight was from Monday and he grows more everyday. We saw the Dr. a calendar month before, so he was able to calculate how much weight Ben is gaining each day, he came up with a little over an ounce. I'm so proud of my growing boy. And everything else checked out ok as well. So we go back in a month for the first round of shots.

Amazing Ben

So as I was sitting in the living room writing the las post, Ben did something amazing! Don had just finished changing his diaper and decided to give Ben some tunny time ( only the second or third tummy time he has had). I sat watching him lifting his head up, which is the point of time spent on the belly, and he started to squirm a bit. All of a sudden he rolled himself up onto his side and I thought he was just going to chill there or maybe roll back onto his belly when he rolled the rest of the way over. You got it, Ben rolled over and he isn't even a month old yet!!!!! Ok so he will be a month old on Monday but he isn't that old yet and even if he was it is still amazing to roll over at a month old. He worked so hard on rolling over that he needed to eat so we have not tested to see if he can duplicate his feat, but I am sure he will be able to. He had rolled onto his side from his back earlier in the day so I bet he can roll from his tummy again.

All about Jackie

Jackie has been up to all of her normal stunts and added a few new ones in the weeks since we last had a post mainly about her. She is adding new words to her list (apple, shoe, bird, Ah-boo, pretty, yeah, probably some others that I can't remember) like Ben and no. And I know what you are thinking: here comes the endless barrage of "nos." But it is actually nice to receive an honest answer about what Jackie wants instead of yeah to everything whether she wants it or not. And so far Jackie doesn't say no to everything we ask her to do, just to some things. I think she likes the capability to express her discontent and so far has not abused the privilege of saying the word although I know at some point she probably will.

Jackie had a nice Easter with her cousins. Jackie went to an easter egg hunt the town of Norfolk had last Saturday. She had a blast running around the field at the end of the hunt with her basket. She however did not quite understand the purpose of the hunt. The field was divided into sections by age so that the older children would have a more challenging hunt than the younger children. The section for two and three year olds had little foil covered chocolate eggs literally all over the ground, you almost could not walk without stepping on one. Jackie would not pick up the eggs unless I was standing there telling her to pick it up and put it in her basket. I picked a few of the eggs up and put them in her basket thinking it would help her understand the object but it had no effect. I even handed her a piece of the chocolate to eat thinking it give her a little incentive, it didn't. But when she participated in the family Easter egg hunt on Sunday, she finally got the point and she did quite well collecting eggs. Although Papa, Uncle Anthony and Aunt Mary helped Jackie fill her basket a little bit before she finally understood about collecting the eggs. So we shared her found eggs with Kaelin who was too busy eating what she found in her eggs to pick up many. There should be pictures posted soon from Easter so you will be able to see Jackie hunting for her eggs.

On a slightly sad note, Jackie has an ear infection. It is only the second one she has had but it is still no fun. She has had a cold for about a week and had seemed to be getting better until Tuesday night. That was the worst night we have had in some time. We no sooner finally got Ben to sleep at 1 in the morning when Jackie woke up with screams. And nothing would console her. So Jackie ended up "sleeping" in our bed, we all got about two hours of sleep. So Wednesday morning Don called the doctor and I took both kids to the doctor by myself. It was our first outing alone. Jackie was such a big girl at the doctors office even though she didn't feel well. She followed all of my directions and held my hand in the parking lot so she could walk and not be carried. She was very grown up.

Because our trip to the doctor went so well, I felt brave enough to take Jackie to the park on Friday. The weather was a beautiful 70 degrees, which we haven't seen in MA since August or September of last year. And the town has a very nice playground with all sorts of toys. She was a little tentative at first but saw a ball and went over and picked it up and just stood there holding it, looking at all the kids playing. After a few minutes she decided it was safe to look around some. She found a little pail and carried it around as she explored the playscape. Jackie spent most of her time walking back and forth on the ramp of the playscape. I only got her to go down the slide twice even though she enjoyed it. She also had a nice time in the swing but didn't want to swing very long. She just enjoys being outside and running around and watching other kids.

One other cute thing that Jackie has done recently is that she has decided she needs a pillow when she sleeps. After sharing the room with Grandma in March around the time Ben was born, Jackie started wanting to sleep on the futon in that room with the pillow and the sheets pulled up over her. So Don and I went to Target and found a travel sized pillow for Jackie to use in her bed. So now at night Jackie lays down on her pillow and waits for us to put her blanket over her like a sheet and cuddles up with her puppy (woof-woof as Jackie now calls dogs) and a light-weight blanket and goes to sleep. I think as soon as we move, Jackie will move into a big girl bed. She is growing up so fast, it is hard to believe that just 20 months ago she was as little as Ben is now.

I think this gets everyone up to date on Jackie's escapades of late. I'll try to start having a few posts every now and then that focus on just one child and what they have been up to lately. Hopefully I will be able to actually accomplish this.

~Tiffany

Life since Ben came home

We have had a busy three weeks since Benjamin came home from the hospital, but they have been a mostly good three weeks. I sat down a week ago to write this post and then Jackie woke up from her nap and I am just now getting back to the post. 

Life with a second child is definitely different and crazier than life with one child. And I think it is a harder transition to two children from one than it is from no children to one. Jackie has for the most part been very good with Ben. She spent the first week mostly just fascinated by his feet and hands, and she understands she needs to be gentle with him. Even if she doesn't always remember exactly how soft gentle always is. Jackie has become more loving toward Ben as he gets older: she likes to give him hugs and kisses and likes to "hold" him. When Jackie holds Ben she wants his bum resting in her lap but she is too little to understand the need to hold any other part of him, like his head, so I hold the top half of him so she can pat his head or touch his hands while she "holds" Ben. It is pretty cute. This week she has also started giving Ben kisses and hugs on a pretty regular basis.

Whenever Ben cries, Jackie points to him, looks at me and generally says Ben although Jackie's "Ben" does not have a hard "n" sound at the end. If we are in anther room than Ben when he starts to make noise she runs toward the room he is in while doing the above. She wants to make sure I can hear him and will take care of whatever he needs. She does not like to hear him fuss. And yesterday (4/17) when we were getting ready to leave the house, Ben started crying in his car seat and Jackie tried to put his pacifier in his mouth. Mind you she was holding the nipple and trying to put the other end in his mouth but it was pretty cute. It was also the first time Jackie seemed to understand what the pacifier was for and use it appropriately. Before then Jackie was just fascinated by it because she hasn't seen a pacifier since she was three or four months old. So she would pluck it out of Ben's mouth or grab it from wherever we left it and look at it or stick it in her mouth.

I'm sure everyone would like to know what the progression of Ben's weight has been. He was born at 7lbs 9oz and was discharged from the hospital at 6lbs 15oz. That Monday we had a visiting nurse come and she weighed him at 7lbs 1oz and on Wed. at 7lbs 2.5oz. Thursday Ben had his first pediatrician visit and they weighed him at 7lbs 3.5oz. Two weeks later (or the Wed. before Easter) Ben was weighed again at the hospital when he went for his "procedure" and he was a whopping 8lbs 5oz. That made all the sleepless nights a little more tolerable. I am so thankful that breastfeeding is going more smoothly than it did with Jackie. It has been nice to spend the first month mostly at home and not in and out of the Dr's office and the hospital like we did with Jackie.

And Jackie and I are getting a little more used to life with just us and Ben during the day. The very first day the three of us spent alone was fairly traumatic for Jackie and I, Jackie especially had a rough time. But we have sorted life out and Jackie is getting more patient and I am getting better at doing things for Jackie while Ben is eating (which seems to be most of the time). We even made it out of the house a couple of times in the last week. I think I am finally getting the hang of being a mother of two and Jackie is getting the hang of being a big sister. Now if we could just get a little more sleep all around life would be good.

~Tiffany

New photos of Ben!

Hi Everyone! Check http://www.fleaandcompany.com/Photography/20090329_Ben2/index.html for more Ben photos. Ben's gaining weight and doing well, although it seems like he wants to eat every hour. Tiffany is feeling mostly better at this point, apart from lack of sleep. I have video to post; hopefully I'll get to it in the not-too-distant future!

Don

Benjamin Richard

Hi everyone! We are proud to announce the arrival of Benjamin Richard. He was born at 9:28am this morning, weighing 7 pounds 9.3 ounces and 20.5 inches long. He's a good sleeper and a good eater so far. I've posted some photos at the link below. http://www.fleaandcompany.com/Photography/20090320_Ben1/index.html Take care! Don & Tiffany (and Jackie and Ben)