Toddler moments

My daughter cracks me up. I can't even imagine what life will be like with three toddlers running around. Here are a few highlights from the past few days...

-As soon as Tim leaves in the morning Sofia runs to the door and deadbolts it shut, I have no idea where she learned that. I never lock the door after he leaves.
-Sofia watched Tim pull a tick of of our dog, Frodo. The next day she found the needle nose pliers and tried to do it herself.
-Sofia loves her brothers, so much so that she kisses them or gives them toys minutes after they fall asleep. There's no way I can discourage her from loving on her brothers.
-Whenever Sofia sees the Green Bay Packers logo she immediately yells, "Touch down!".
-Sofia copies absolutely EVERYTHING I do. She loves to "help" feed babies, burp them and talks and plays with them the same way I do. The most frustrating thing for her is when I pick one up and she can't pick up the other twin.

Telling Everett how much she loves the Bumbo

Obsessed with yogurt!

Hanging out with Uncle Andy

Everett & Sullivan join a family of faith...

Today we celebrated our boys' baptism. The service was absolutely beautiful and it was so nice to have so many family members with us to celebrate. We started attending First Congregational Church in Port Washington in August and we will officially join this spring. The church is amazing, we were members of another UCC church in Memphis that was also called First Congregational Church. Our pastor did an excellent job today. Everett wore the same outfit that Tim was baptized in when he was a baby, the outfit was made by hand by his God mother. Sullivan was baptized in the outfit that three generations of my family have been baptized in. After each boy was baptized our pastor walked them around the entire congregation so they could be properly introduced to their family of faith. After the service Tim and I hosted a brunch for our family members at our house. Sorry for the large amount of pictures, it was a very memorable day.

Everett's 4 month picture retake

I redid Everett's 4 month photos today. What a difference! The boys also met Tim's Aunt Peg and Uncle Russ who were in town from Florida for the Packer game and Thanksgiving.

What's in a name?

I have been thinking about the boys' names this weekend as I work on the letters for their room and fill out paperwork for their upcoming baptism and I realized that I never really explained the origin of the boys' names. They are not exactly the most common names and we have a lot of people who absolutely love them and then we always get some funny looks from other people. It's funny because with Sofia I had boys names picked out until I found out we were expecting a girl and with the twins I had two girls' names picked out until we found out they were both boys.

Let's start with Everett. During most of the pregnancy he was referred to as "Baby A". For a long time we thought he was going to be named Henry. During the last trimester of the pregnancy I started to waver on Henry for several reasons. Tim and I went back to the drawing board and I told Tim about a name I have always loved, Everett. Everett is an English variation of a German name which is perfect for us. My family is German and Irish and Tim's family is German, Irish and very English. The name means brave as a wild boar and boy oh boy does that suit Everett well. Tim was a little cautious because it is such a unique name but we decided on it a few weeks before the boys were born. Everett's middle name, James, is the first name of Tim's Dad. Once Everett was born I thought his name suited him perfectly. And now that I know him and his personality I can't even imagine ever calling him Henry.

Sullivan's name was a name Tim and I always knew we would use if we ever had a boy. This is kind of similar to Sofia's name. This may sound strange but when Tim and I were traveling around Europe together after my semester abroad in Spain we had a lot of time to talk with all of the plane and train rides. We wrote down a list of boys and girls names that we liked. The name Sofia was at the top of our list back in 2005 and we still love it today. Sofia's middle name, Lorraine, is Tim's mother's name and grandmother's name. We wanted to continue the tradition. We were a little cautious to use it with her because it has become somewhat popular but we finally decided to do what we love and not worry about other people. Now, back to Sullivan. Sullivan is Tim's mother's maiden name and a great Irish surname. Jeffrey is my father's name. Both boys have their grandfathers' names as middle names. We mainly call Sullivan Sully and his name also fits him perfectly. He is just a jolly little guy. I call him my jolly Irish man. He has such a happy, laid back personality and he always has a little twinkle in his eyes.

Here are both boys with their namesakes reversed, Sully is with Granddad Jim and Everett is with Grandpa Jeff.

4 months old!

The boys are officially 4 months old! They visited the pediatrician yesterday and she was very pleased with their health and how they are growing. Tim had to take the morning off to come to the appointment. There are a lot of crazy things I do by myself with all 3 kids. Attempting to go to the doctor by myself for a well child visit and vaccines is a realm of craziness I haven't entered, yet.  I took 4 month pictures today, I'll post those later. Let's just say we may need to do a retake tomorrow.

Here are the official stats.

Everett James- 25.5 inches tall and 15lbs 4 oz (72nd percentile for height and 58th for weight)
Sullivan Jeffrey-25.25 inches tall and 14lbs 11 oz (63rd percentile for height and 46th for weight)

At 4 months old the boys are so much fun. They both love to "talk", smile and laugh at Tim and I and sometimes Sofia. They watch our dog Frodo a lot. They even interact with each other. Last night Tim gave Sofia a bath and positioned the boys across from each other and they were cooing back and forth to one another. Everett rolled over from front to back about 10 times last week. He hasn't been doing it as much this week. Sullivan is still working on it. Sullivan is probably the most laid back baby I've ever met. Everett is a people person, he LOVES to interact with people, he seems to be a bit of Mama's guy. Both boys love to be sung to and and really love playing patty cake. Sullivan sleeps through the night, every night. Everett has been waking up 1-2 times per night and he eats 6-8oz when he wakes up. We talked to the pediatrician about this and she just explained that he needs to eat more because of his growth and the fact that he was born 5 weeks early. Sullivan isn't far behind his brother in growth, he just does most of his eating during the day. We are going to wait another month to start rice cereal. Here are the pictures from today's photo shoot, enjoy!

I started with Sullivan today who was in a fantastic mood!

It's becoming quite difficult to get them both smiling in the same picture.

I LOVE MY BOYS!

I love Sully's pout face. He is a master at working his lower lip.

Everett is starting to fade.

Time to end the photo shoot!

Everett, still refusing to smile.

Things to remember

My sweet Sofia is already 20 months old! She does and says so many funny things every day. Today I just had to write a few in the blog, mainly so I can remember these things later on.

• Sofia usually wakes up singing but she woke up laughing today. Awesome.
• She LOVES her brothers and her dog, Frodo. After her morning snuggles with Tim and I she generally runs around the house saying "Fro Fro, Fro Fro" searching for her beloved dog. Then she runs into her brothers' bedroom and tries to climb into their cribs. She also loves to open all the windows in the morning. I have to race to beat her to the wood blinds in our living room so she doesn't destroy them.
• I left our main living area for a few minutes to change on of the boys and I returned to the room to find my darling daughter bathing all of her "babies" (baby stuffed animals) in Frodo's water bowl.
• Whenever one of her brothers is under the play gym she puts one of her baby dolls next to him. She also puts babies in the swing whenever it's free.
• Since August she has loved to "push" her brothers while they are in the swing. We were worried she would break the swing but there is just no stopping her. She loves to be pushed and I honestly think she pushes her brothers because she thinks they would also love to be pushed. They stare at her and smile and she smiles back and says "Weeeeeee".
• Sofia loves to help me out. She helps give the boys baths, helps hold bottles and will sometimes adjust pump settings while I'm pumping, sometimes it hurts but she just smiles because she thinks she's helping.
• For some unknown reason she kissed the garbage can today, and also tried to kiss the floor of the pediatrician's office this morning (Tim and I caught her in time). She is a very affectionate girl, she loves to kiss her brothers and Frodo, but my favorite moment is when she's busy playing and just stops, runs up to me and wraps her arms around my neck and plants a big kiss on my lips. She usually runs back to her activity but I just wonder what was going through her sweet little head that she felt the need to give me a kiss.
• Sofia is serious about dental hygiene, she brushes her teeth 3-4 times a day and is obsessed with Tim's electric toothbrush. Today I caught her brushing Frodo's head with Tim's toothbrush.
• I hid a raspberry in her greek yogurt the other day, when she took that bite she stopped looked at me and pulled the raspberry out of her mouth and said "Yuk!". I think it's a texture thing because she then proceeded to eat a half a pound of strawberries, seriously. 

There are so many funny things that she does on a daily basis but those are just a few that I can think of right now. I love her and my sweet little family so much it hurts, life is good!

Adjusting the swing.

Weeeeee!

My boys! Just looking at this picture makes me want to run in their room and shower them with kisses and snuggles.