Isaac Update

For all of the family that is always wanting to see more pictures, here's a couple of cuties:This one was taken right after, amidst a bunch of things going on, I suddenly realized that Jenelle was saying again and again, "Look, I'm picking up baby without an adult!" I might have scared her when I realized what was going on. Oops. After explaining, we let her hold him with supervision.
Here's our lazy boy. I put him on his stomach for some tummy time exercises, and instead this is what he did:
And thank heavens for the swing!!! We've used it and loved it with all three of our kids, and our nephew. Although sometimes he's not as in love with it as we are:
but often, the rocking keeps him nicely asleep, even if he does scrunch up nearly sideways, and make funny faces:
We just are loving our little man and all the blues, greens, and browns that have suddenly entered our lives!

Kids websites?

Question to all of you fantastic moms out there. What are some good websites with fun and possibly even educational online activities or games for preschool/kindergarten age kids? The girls love www.friend.lds.org and we'll occasionally go to www.pbskids.com (in particular, the word world part), www.playhousedisney.com, or www.nickjr.com, and they just had some fun with http://boowakwala.uptoten.com/kids/boowakwala-games.html yesterday. But the girls get bored with some of the less interesting games, and I really try to find ones that are worth something, you know, like might teach them something, or help them learn a bit. While I'm feeding Isaac, one of their favorite things to do is play on the computer, and since Isaac eats rather frequently, we're looking for some new places to go. Not that I let them play on the computer all day long ... I let them watch movies too. Ha, I'm a terrible mom. Anyway, any pointers while I get the hang of this three kid, missing-out-on-sleep, head cold, haven't-even-unpacked-my-apartment-yet thing? Thanks!

Oh, and by the way, earlier today the girls asked, "Daddy, can we have more cheetos?" He said yes, and as he brought them to the girls, Jell chirped, "thanks," and Meri, with a totally Meri mischievous grin drawled, "thanks ... old man." Then the both erupted in giggles. Oh boy.

Look out kindergarten!

Finally the day that Jell has waited basically her entire life arrived - her first day of kindergarten! Due to the timing of the baby's arrival and our move, she started nearly a month into the school year up here. They started August 30th, but that's okay, because she got to be the cool new girl. "Mom, everyone wanted to play with me at recess, but I told them I could only play with three of them at a time. And so I played with just three." Not sure what that was about but I'm sure it went down like that since she told us all the story. Anyway, she was so super excited and super cute:Meri even handled it okay, and just kept talking about when she gets to go to kindergarten there. Her teacher looks like she'll be lots of fun, and although we left Jell there looking extremely wide-eyed and nervous, she came home bubbly and full of happy stories. I barely made it out of the school without bursting into tears but somehow I held it together. My parents stayed to help get her to school (they came up with us for the weekend to help us move in and get settled). They were tons and tons of help (as were my in-laws that came up the weekend before we even got up here to unpack us so it would be live-able when we got here. But after dinner on the patio, my parents went back home:They will be sorely missed. Although I am proud to say, I managed to get all three kids bathed and Jell to school on time (today she rode the bus! She didn't even look back at me or wave or anything. SAD!). I know that will shortly be the minimum expected of me, but it was our first time all on our own. I think now I deserve a nap. However, that looks unlikely. I'll have to settle for some ice cream with Meri as our Jell's-at-kindergarten treat.

Other going ons

We have actually moved. Sigh. We are hereby officially residents of Sammamish, Washington. Total mixed emotions here - we are seriously going to miss our friends, and we went to our new ward today and looked around at a whole ton of faces without recognizing one. We haven't really ever done this whole move to an unknown place and unknown family ward before (The Dalles for the summer doesn't count because it was so temporary). It's a little intimidating. But at the same time, we are very excited for this new phase in our life. Coop has started his new job and is loving it. Our apartment is in a beautiful area and will work great. Baby Isaac is here and we love him. Jell starts kindergarten tomorrow and couldn't be more thrilled. So lots of exciting things all happening at the same time. We are sad though that we didn't even really get to say goodbye. I could say that's because we'll be back often to visit so it's not so final as all that. But in case you're one of our friends from home and weren't sure, we love you and will miss you terribly. Our girls would totally say the same.
Anyway, here are a couple of other fun pics and we will take some later of where we live!
Somehow our little man is already 2 weeks old! And look, he is so long and is already getting some little chubby rolls:Sad face:
And apparently it's not enough to have the dolls play inside the house. Meri had to get a little more "into" it ... and naturally, got stuck.I guess this one might take a little explanation. We aren't paying for tv but we do have internet. So on Saturday, there were a few football games that everyone wanted to watch. Not being able to flip back and forth on the tv, we set up our desktop, our laptop and my mom's laptop with three separate games at the same time. When I suggested it, Coop jumped right on it and announced he had never been more in love with me. For some reason, each year of our marriage, I've become more and more interested in college football and have enjoyed watching it more and more. Again, he's thrilled and I'm not bored every Saturday during the fall. Win, win! If only the Beavers had played a little better.

Isaac's first bath! The girls thought it was hilarious that he was taking a bath in the sink. He was quite startled but quickly calmed down, relaxed completely (looking again, a little drunk) and LOVED it!!

Love that I get near, and his mouth automatically opens. Glad to know I'm good for something. Now to get fully unpacked and settled in ... and to get some more sleep.

We love our little Sleepy-head

We have been SO blessed! Our little guy is such a great sleeper. Naturally, he prefers to sleep all day and have his too-cute-to-ignore-wide-awake times during the middle of the night, but he is only 2 weeks old so we'll forgive him for now. Anyway, he started out loving to sleep like this:
But now he hates it. He gets SO mad when we try to wrap him. Instead he wants to sleep stretched out like this:


And here, he has "assumed the position." When Coop was about 9 he noticed that after eating, his dad would always lean back in his chair, drape one arm over the next chair and sigh big - stretching out a full tummy. Since then it's been an inside joke. And here's our little man doing it already ... he has "assumed the position." And he's milk drunk. That's fun too.

The girls agree with me...

The men in our life are awesome!
The girls really missed us when we were in the hospital. Every time they came to visit, Meri in particular wouldn't let Coop out of arms reach. Me, in the hospital bed with IVs and all made her nervous, but she was climbing all over Cooper and clinging to him desperately when it was time to go. And it hasn't changed much since we got home - they both love their daddy (and when on earth did Meri get so long and lean):
And they love our new little man too!! They are constantly coming in to check on him, rub his head, show him toys, ask if his eyes are open, suggest a diaper change, etc. And they look so cute together:They finally have what they've always wanted - two princes, so that our two princesses don't have to share at the ball :) We just got lucky that our princes are so cute!

P.S. Random funniness - as the girls raced to the car to go somewhere with daddy, Jell yelled out, "First one in their car seat is a rockin' egg!"

Who says they don't smile yet?

We just love our little man! He is really such a blessing - a good sleeper, hardly cries and even when he does it's rather tame, a cuddler, and totally seems older than he is because of his size but also because of how he seems to thoughtfully look at us as if trying to figure out this crazy world he's been thrust into. He's so calm and such a good eater. Couldn't ask for more! We're so so so so grateful!

Introducing ...

Sir Isaac Berne Whitman
Born Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at 8:04 AM
A whopping 8 lbs 12 crazy ounces big (a week before his due date mind you!)
20 adorable inches long

But you don't just have to take my word for it. See his cuteness for yourself:

Our big 5 year-old girl!

Jell has been looking forward to turning 5 for about a year now. We've been hearing about it in relation to all sorts of things, "Maybe those pants will fit me when I'm 5," "Maybe I'll like strawberries when I turn 5," "When do I get to be 5?" "I'll be big enough to climb that fence when I'm 5," and especially, the most important - "I get to go to kindergarten when I'm 5!" The morning of her birthday, she came into our bedroom to ask if it was okay for her to get up now since it was 8 o'clock. I replied, "guess what?" "What?" "You're 5 now!" She gasped and her jaw dropped to the floor, "REALLY? I'm 5 now?" (As if we hadn't been counting down everyday for weeks!) She laughed, and turned to her sis, "Meri, guess what?! I'm 5 now!!!" So although it's a week late, and was a tad overshadowed by bed rest and wedding preparations, and lacking a friend party, here's Jelly's birthday!
And the favorite present (and it's not even too loud and obnoxious. It's pretty cute actually - the box has color-coded notes to follow to play songs like "twinkle twinkle"):Free birthday dessert at Applebee's where we celebrated with Grandma and Grandpa Berne:
Happy Birthday Red! (Really can't believe she's 5 - can't believe I'm old enough to have a 5 year-old!!) We love you and the exuberance/intensity/curiosity/laughter/joy you bring to life!!

Summer livin'

I got oddly ambitious when I saw a yummy-looking recipe and so we made our own homemade fudgesicles. I wasn't really sure why since you can buy a box for a couple of bucks but the girls enjoyed making them in our sweaty, air-conditionless kitchen, and we all enjoyed eating them in our slightly-less-sweaty-because-of-the-breeze driveway. They were yummy! And ended up all over faces and strategically-placed aprons. By the way, anyone have any tips on getting homemade popsicles out of their containers without just pulling the stick out?
And here we have our themeless homemade water park. Who needs six flags? We have an $8 pool from Fred Meyers, a slide from a garage sale and our sprinkler!Ta Dah!And on one of those recent not-so-nice summer days in Portland, I took the girlies to Omsi. We pass Omsi everytime we roll into town and they've been begging me to bring them for forever. So here they are finally, in seventh-heaven:Future city-designing architects with distinctly different styles:They'd been quiet for awhile so I went to see what they were actually up to. Just having a princess tea-party complete with make-overs in their homemade salon:
Love the creativity they have all on their own!