Halloween Pictures

We had a great Halloween except Sophia got a fever. We still let her go Trick-or-Treating though (she didn't act like she was sick). I have also found that she is a bit of a hypochondriac. If we told her she had a fever she would have told everyone and then complained the whole time. Instead she had a great time and slept well that night. James got sick then and is still sick. In fact I had to get him from school on Thursday (he had a fever of 102.7) and now has a stomach bug. Yuck! The stomach bug has been pasted onto me now. Hopefully Jim won't get it or Jacob. So, other than the sickness that has been running throughout our house, we had a fun Halloween. Here are some pictures:

Jacob is sitting now. He can't get there by himself but if you put him up he will stay there.

Morning after Halloween

Sarah Bielski (dressed as This And That), Sophia, and James

Buzz Lightyear and Jessie

Jacob (My Little Peacock)

First Cereal

Jacob had his first cereal today. I will post a picture later or at least have it on Snapfish. He really liked it. It didn't take long at all before he was opening up his mouth to take more when he saw the spoon coming. I think he is going to be a pro! Hopefully he will be a clean eater like Sophia was. She always has eaten well. James is more of an expressive eater and a picky eater and sometimes a non-eater. :)

The Beeson Castle

Well, last week we got our playset put in. We choice a Rainbow Playsystem from Recreation Unlimited. The specific one that we selected was the Super Rainbow. It is Super too!! The kids love it and so does Jim and I. It is actually big enough that Jim and I have fun on it. Jim works out on it. I love swinging on the buoy ball, climbing the Jacob's rope ladder, and sliding down the slide. The playset is cool. There is a racing car tire that is actually from a real Nascar race car. It is the left front tire of the number 6 car. You can tell it has been driven on too. Very cool! Here are some pics:

Here is the set being installed. Two men did it in 4 hours.

The kids and I watched all morning.

Here is the finished product from our sitting room window.

Here is a view of the back of our house and the playset.

Jacob is 4 Months!

My little Jacob is now 4 months old! It is hard to believe but thank goodness we made it through the first 3 months. Wow, those are hard! Jacob is now 16 pounds 9 ounces and is 26.5 inches long. So big! He is wearing 6-12 month clothing perfectly now. I love his little laughs and smiles. He is full of them. He also loves to talk but his talking has decreased some lately becuase he has an ear infection. Jacob is handling it pretty well though. He is rolling over both ways now and gets his body all contorted. He is so much fun to watch. He loves his Gymboree class too. What a joy he is!

When I compared Jacob's size with Sophia and James at this age, it stacked up like this:

Sophia 15 lbs 10 oz, 25.5 in.

James 15 lbs 15 oz, 26.25 in.

Jacob: 16 lbs 9 oz, 26.5 in.

Looks like in our family, the more kids we have, the bigger they get!

The pictures above are from his 3 month photo appointment. So Cute!!

Field Trip

Today was Sophia's very first Field Trip. I went as a chaperone. Since the kids go to a private school, there are no school buses. If there is a field trip, the parents are expected to drive the kids. This trip each child had a parent go with them so we did some carpooling. We had Sam and his mom Susan ride with us. Sophia and Sam play quite a bit with each other so they were excited to ride together. It was very cute to see them in the back together. Apparently Sam taught Sophia how to sword fight last week. It is very cute to see them interact. Anyway, back to the field trip, we went to a pumpkin patch. Everyone got to pick out a pumpkin. We also rode in a wagon, went through a hay maze (which the kids didn't really follow, they just climbed over the haybails), jumped in a bounce zone, and played on a playset. The kids had lots of fun. On the way back to school Sam and Sophia were very tired. I enjoyed going on my first field trip with Sophia and meeting some of her classmates and talking to some of the parents.

Stay tuned for tomorrows post. Jacob has his 4 month doctor's appointment tomorrow and I can't wait to see how big he is!

New Blog

This blog is going to continue because it is a good way for family to keep in touch with the children and Jim and I . Have just started a new blog www.mythreelittleducklings.blogspot.com

It will be an honest view of motherhood to three children, all of which are currently under 3. It is more of a venting avenue and will probably be very amusing to some of you. Anyway, just wanted to share.

Some Summer Pictures

So I need to finally start putting photos on the blog. Since I have my new computer (yippee!) and it is so much easier to use, I should be able to post more. Not to mention it is much faster than my 10 year old old laptop. This first photo is of Sophia, James and Kara standing in front of our tomato plant. The plant is still giving us sweet juicy tomatoes and is now more than twice the size that it is in the picture. I think it is going to take over the whole deck! For those of you who do not know Kara, let me introduce her. Kara has watched the kids since we had kids. She was Sophia's first babysitter, James' first babysitter, and now Jacob's first babysitter. She came twice a week this past summer and we love her. Hopefully next summer she can some three days a week. The kids have a great time with her and she helped us a LOT this summer.
This is a picture of Jacob around 2 months old. James loves to kiss on him and here he is kissing on his feet. James has become very affectionate with Jacob.
Okay so Jacob looks really goofy here but this is a photo of all three playing together.
Can you feel the love?

Since these pictures, Jacob has grown a lot. He is getting close to 15 pounds and is definitely the baby in the family. He smiles all the time (started smiling around 4 weeks) and blows raspberries too. He will even imitate raspberries. He is starting to poop more than once a week but still doesn't sleep super great during the day. He did nap for three hours in the bouncer today but forget about it in the bed. 45 minutes is the most he will do in his bed during the day. At night he will sleep for 11-12 hours and wake up once for a business feeding. He is holding his head up well and meets his hands at midline. He is starting to try to reach for items and LOVEs this (kind of ugly) red bird Carol got him. For the past 2-3 weeks he has been drooling up a storm. Way earlier drooling than the other kids. He has crazy hair (must be a male trait in our household) and his eyes are still blue.

My New Computer

I am in love once again. This time with a Mac. Jim and I got new computers and we went with Apples and we very very happy with the decision. I got a MacBook Pro. I do not think we will ever go back to a PC. We signed up for a year of personal service called One to One. It's like the Help on the computer only in person. Tomorrow I am going in to the Apple Store for a class on using iPhoto. I am taking Sophia with me. They have a station for kids where there are about 4-6 computers set up just for kids to play on while their parents take classes or get help. I think she will love it. If anyone is getting a computer soon, I would recommend an Apple. Did you know you can run Windows from an Apple and there is also Microsoft Office for Windows? I didn't know I was so far behind the times!

Quickie

Here is the quick new around our house:

Our two year old (James) had a stand-off with his Daddy tonight. He wanted to use the keys to open the door, he did not get to and as a result he screamed in the garage so the whole neighborhood would hear his complaint. In return, Daddy held his milk for ransom. It was an ugly battle but Daddy won and James is in bed with no milk, no stories, no Bible and a quick goodnight kiss.

Jacob is 11 weeks old and weighs in at 13 lbs and 8 oz. He is looking a little like a linebacker and is oh so cute. He laughed today for the first time when we played pat-a-cake. I love it!

Sophia started to randomly do math problems at dinner yesterday. She is actually pretty good and can do simple math like 2+3, 8+1, 45+0, etc. I don't know where she learned this (I asked her teacher and she said they haven't done addition yet) but I am assuming it is just the natural genius that she inherited from her mother :)

Jim is nailing down his details to Big Ben National Park. He is getting excited about the trip while I am getting anxious that he is going to be gone.

My update is that I have a cold, a yucky green gunk in your lungs cold. Cough Cough.

Another Month

Another month has flown by. It is amazing how time speeds up with the more kids you have! Here is what is new:

Sophia has graduated from Gymboree this past week. She has loved it and so have we. She will have her last soccer lesson next week. She doesn't really like soccer and wants to try swim class again. Swim begins next week. Ballet will begin in September and she is already practicing her twirling. Sophia has a "meet the teacher/practicing school day" next week. Mom and Dad are very excited for that! Sophia continues to be a great help around the house. She has started to chew on her hair (a stress issue that has developed since Jacob's birth). Tomorrow we are getting her hair cut to her shoulders.

James has definitely reached the Terrible Twos! One moment he is sweet and fun and the next he is screaming and mean. He is super cute though when he says, "I sorry Mom. I sorry." What a sweet innocent voice!! He knows how to push my buttons though and I realize I have been giving in too much. So, we are going to start sticking to what we say and that's that!! James is moving on up in Gymboree and is continuing with soccer. His "meet the teacher" is next week too. We are very excited and hope he doesn't get kicked out of school....just joking!! (kind of) Ahh, to be the middle child...wait... I am!!

Okay, so Jacob. My sweet sweet Jacob. He had his two month checkup today. He is 12 pounds 13 ounces and is almost 24 inches long. He coos all the time (his favorite is "Ah Goo"). He loves smiling at faces and rolls from belly to back. He loves his bath time and you can lay him down completely awake at night time and he will put himself to sleep. Napping during the day is slowly starting to take place, although he will only nap for 45 minutes at a time in his crib but will nap for 3+ hours in his car seat. He is ADORABLE! Now all he has to do is to sleep through the night (he still gets up twice to eat). Needless to say I am tired every morning! On the bright side though, he has reached the 8 week mark which means we can take him out in public now. (For those of you who don't know, Jim has a strict policy of keeping newborns away from the public for the first 8 weeks. He has too many bad stories from the ER of newborns getting exposed to too many bad germs at an early age).

I am doing well. I see my cardiologist next week so hopefully he gives me the all clear and I can start working out to shed all of the baby weight I have gained over the past 4 years. Bedtime by myself when Jim is working has taken on a routine and isn't stressful any more (as long as everyone cooperates). I just bought my first coffee maker which I am really excited about. Now I am just counting down the months for when I stop nursing and I can have caffeine and wine again.

Jim is hanging in there as well. He is doing great when he is off of work but on weeks when he works he is dog tired. The ER continues to be extremely busy which I guess is good because it means Jim will always have a job but it is wearing him out. One night this week he had to work a double because there were so many people to see he couldn't go home when the other doc came in to relieve him. He finally made it out of there after working 13 hours. YUK! He did give an interview to the newspaper this week so that will be interesting to read the article.

Other family news...we are thinking of taking the kids to Disney this year (James and Jacob are free so that is helping with the decision). But we might decide to take a more relaxing vacation back down to the condos at Marco Island. We don't know! We did take a trip to Holiday World this past week and had a WONDERFUL time. Thanks Mary for the food and lodging!