Happy New Year!!

We have been so blessed this year and are looking forward to all that's in store in 2014.  May all our family and friends have a wonderful and blessed new year!

Happy New Year from our little man and little princess :)!!

Christmas 2013

I'm finding it so hard to believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve!  We are not traveling to NE this year, so we are having our very first Christmas in Texas in our own home and trying to figure out what traditions we'd like to have in our little family of four.  While I'm definitely sad to not be "home" for the holidays, I am happy to be starting our own family traditions (and happy to not spend 14+ hours in the car wih an infant who needs to eat every few hours!). 

Here's a little look at the Halvorsen family traditions we're starting this first Christmas in Texas:
Christmas Eve--Church at 4 (when our kids are older I'm hoping Christmas Eve day will involve volunteering of some sort) followed by dinner of soup.  Open one package (new jammies!) and watch a movie together (this year we're trying Polar Express).
Christmas--Open gifts from family and Santa in the morning.  We are going to follow this gift giving theme: one thing you want, one thing you need, one thing to wear and one thing to read.  This is my attempt to keep gifts in check :).  Then, one thing from Santa and stockings, of course :).  After that we'll hang out and spend time with Justin's family.

Of course, our traditions may change some throughout the years if we are traveling, or as we think of/find new things and as Brie and Caleb get older.  But, for now it has been fun to talk about what we did growing up and blend those things and new things into our own family traditions.  For this year, I'm really looking forward to seeing the magic of Christmas through Brie's eyes.

And, to make this post complete with a picture--here's Brie and daddy visiting the Santa at Justin's work party last Friday morning.  She was really excited to see Santa...until it was time to see Santa, then she wasn't so sure :).
And, if you want a smile, go watch this video of Caleb chatting it up with mommy :).

Thankful

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to you all!  We've been really busy  in this month of November, enjoying an extended visit from Nana and then a visit from Papa and Aunt "Do-do" as well.  We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving feast prepared by my mom (and a tiny bit by me) with our good friends Eric, Laura and Katie.  Brie and Katie had the BEST time playing together--they are just too cute!

 Ready for Turkey Dinner!  Brie & Katie sat by themselves at Brie's little table.  They thought they were hot stuff :).

And after getting their fill of turkey, they worked hard to destroy Brie's nice, clean room :).

Caleb turned 8 weeks old on Thanksgiving--I can hardly believe my little man is already 8 weeks old!  He's growing and changing each day--so fun to watch!

I am so thankful we were able to enjoy having my mom here for two weeks before my dad and sister arrived for the week of Thanksgiving.  She was able to spend lots of time cuddling Caleb and playing with Brie.  We packed lots of fun things into those two weeks including family portraits, two trips to the outlet mall, visiting Santa, a trip to the zoo, and lots of trips to the park and bike rides around the block!  I'm so blessed to have a wonderful mom who was so eager and willing to come spend time with us and help me adjust to life with two kiddos.

 I love, love, love this :)

 Even monkey visited Santa :)

 Train ride after visiting Santa

 Nana loves these two so much!

 Love this face!

 Family of four--wow!

Me and mom :)

After our two weeks with nana, papa and aunt Re arrived.  The weather turned very cold for down here, with a couple of days in the 30s, so we weren't able to get out and do much, but we enjoyed reading, playing play-doh, watching Frosty the Snowman, Skype-ing with Uncle Justin, Aunt Kat, Ella & Olivia, and just hanging out.  Brie also transitioned to her "big-girl" bed and she's done great with it so far!  

We have much to be thankful for this year!  Our families; our health; our beautiful, vibrant, full-of-sass Brie; our adorable, cuddly, changing every day Caleb; and our friends and church community to name a few.  We have been richly blessed this year!!

 Three generations of Husker fans :)

 Smiles for auntie Re on her birthday

Big Girl Bed!

Halloween 2013--4 Weeks Old!

Our little man is 4 weeks old today!

And our little lady had a fun time dressing up and going trick-or-treating!  At one house she told them, "Happy Birthday!" instead of "trick-or-treat."  They gave her double candy because they thought she was just too adorable :).

Newborn Photos

We took Caleb this morning for some newborn photos.  I went loaded with an arsenal of photos I had seen online (thanks Pinterest!) that I wanted to try and recreate, and I'm really pleased with the results!  If you'd like to see them all, you can access the album here: https://viewimages.jcpportraits.com/sharealbum/sharealbumlist?rndId=AwQBAgdEWg==&uId=AwgJBwVAWQ==
or, here are some of my favorites:

I always hoped with Brie to get those amazing "sleeping baby" photos, but she just was not cooperative (she was not a sleepy baby...she's still not a sleepy toddler either...here's hoping Caleb continues to be my good sleeper, so I'll at least have one kid who sleeps :)!).  Caleb was awesome, he was awake for the first few, then I swaddled him while the photographer got some things set up and he crashed and stayed asleep for the final portion of the shoot.  Yay!  He's such a wonderful baby!

One Week...

 It's really hard to believe that on Thursday our little man was one week old!  Time flies!  Today was my due date and he's now 9 days old, which is just really crazy.  According to our scale at home, he's already up five ounces over his birth weight--go Caleb!  He's a great little eater, so I'm not really that surprised :).  He still spends almost all of his time sleeping, but he's starting to have short little periods of being awake and we're enjoying that.  He's rarely fussy, and even when he is it's nothing like it was when Brie had her fussy moments.  We LOVE Brie, of course, but she really wasn't the best baby and was quite colicky and didn't sleep well, even from the beginning.  So, we're kind of enjoying this change of pace with the little man and how well he sleeps and how content he usually is. 

Because Caleb is most likely our last baby, I'm appreciating the little things even more so than I did with Brie.  His little smiles as he falls asleep, the funny little faces he makes (he has a REALLY good pout for a newborn), and even being woken up every two-three hours during the night for feeding sessions.  I know this is just a season in our lives, and it's the last time we'll have this particular kind of season, so I'm trying my best to treasure it, no matter how sleep deprived I may be :). 

We're so truly blessed to have two happy, healthy kiddos and it is such a joy to watch Brie as a big sister and to watch how our new normal as a family of four is unfolding.

 The cheetah photo shoots begin :)!  One Week Old--October 10, 2013

 Kisses for baby brother.  Brie loves to give Caleb kisses and help me burp him!

Proud big sister!  For the most part, Brie is adjusting to her new role as big sister and non-only-child quite well.  She has her moments (don't we all?), but overall she has done great and you can tell she really loves her baby brother! 

Siblings

Every so often when I'm feeding or holding sweet little Caleb, I look down and it's like I'm transported back in time two years and I'm looking down at my sweet little Brielle.  There is no denying these two are siblings:

Growing up, strangers often mistook me and my older brother as twins, because we looked so much alike.  I'm wondering if the same may happen to Brie and Caleb some day?

We are adjusting to life as a family of four relatively well, considering the lack of sleep from having a newborn in the house.  Caleb is the best baby, I had no idea babies could be this easy (since Brie wasn't exactly as "easy" baby).  I really hope his current temperament and sweetness continue!  He is a great eater, is content for the short amount of time he stays awake, and sleeps very, very well.  I actually have to wake him for every feeding right now because he'd just keep on sleeping.  Thankfully he wakes up well and does like to eat!

Brie is loving her big sister role.  She is a great helper and especially loves helping me burp Caleb.  She is very gentle with him and loves to give him kisses.  She calls him baby Caleb, never just Caleb, which is pretty adorable.

I'm recovering fairly well, after a little scare early Monday morning.  I woke to feed Caleb and noticed my bleeding had increased, which my doctor had warned me to watch out for.  We called a friend (who thankfully answered her phone at 3:30am!) and she came right over to watch Brie while Justin, Caleb and I headed up to the hospital.  Thankfully all the tests showed that everything was ok, I was bleeding only because of the extra trauma my insides endured after the birth.  I got some meds and everything seems a-ok now.  I go see my doctor tomorrow to double check everything.

More pictures from our first days at home:

BH2!

We are so pleased to introduce our son, Caleb Dean :)!!!

 Caleb arrived at 1:14pm on Thursday October 3, 2013.  He weighs 6lbs 4oz and is 18.5 in. long.  Our lil peanut!  He is a wonderful baby so far and is already feeding like a champ.  We are so blessed and feel our family is now complete!!

Meeting Caleb for the first time :)

Brie was able to come up to the hospital today to meet her baby brother and she seemed to think he was A-OK.  It will be interesting to see her reaction when the three of us come home this afternoon.  Caleb's birth, much like Brie's, was very quick and relatively easy.  However, after Caleb was born the doctor discovered that part of my placenta had grown into my uterine wall.  This required him to manipulate and strip the placenta from my uterus, resulting in a lot of bleeding.  Thankfully the team of nurses and my doctor were very aggressive and quick acting and were able to use a balloon and packing to stop the bleeding.  We had to spend the whole first night in labor and delivery so that my doctor could monitor me very closely.  They were checking on either me or Caleb almost every hour, so I only got about an hour of sleep the whole night, but adrenaline and the rush of having a sweet new baby kept me going.  

We were finally transferred to post-partum just before lunch on Friday.  During that process I became very nauseous so they gave me some IV meds that got rid of the nauseousness, but caused me to be extremely drowsy.  This resulted in a nice little nap for me, and bonding time for daddy and Caleb :).  The rest of today has been relatively quiet with just regular little checkups for me and Caleb, feeding times, and cat naps here and there.  We are definitely looking forward to heading home tomorrow and starting out our life as a family of four!!

I'm a Big Kid Now!

One of my main goals was to try and have Brie potty-trained before BH2 arrives.  Luckily, she was already starting to show signs of being ready, so I was pretty confident I wouldn't be pushing her.  She's a smart little cookie, but I was still really worried and not looking forward to the whole potty-training "stuff."  I heard and read about a method called the "3-Day Potty Training" and mostly agreed with what I read, so I jumped on board with that as my method of choice.  While I don't think it would probably work for every single kiddo out there, it worked AMAZING with Brie.  Seriously.  By the beginning of day 4 she had potty-ing down pat, and hasn't had an accident since (training started on August 9th!).  So far she isn't scared of public restrooms either (in fact, probably the opposite, she LOVES to visit them).  I'm crossing my fingers and toes that the new baby arriving won't cause her to regress, because she's just been such a super-star so far!  And I'll admit, it has been really, really nice to have a short reprieve from diaper changing before baby comes!

Aside from all the potty-training fun, we've been busy trying to get everything organized, setup, and ready for BH2.  With Brie I had six full weeks of no work and nothing to do but get ready...not so much this time around since I have Brie to keep me busy :).  Luckily we've pretty much got all our ducks in a row and are ready for BH2 to arrive whenever he/she is ready (and mommy is ready NOW, so come on baby!).  Here are a few pics of the nursery and my bump :).

 I found this crib set on E-bay when I was only about 10 weeks pregnant and am so happy with how it looks all set up in the nursery!

37 weeks, 6 days--baby is loooooow and I'm ready to meet this little one!!!

Stay tuned to the blog, hopefully I'll be posting about baby's arrival very soon!

Birthday Fun! Brie is TWO!

It still boggles my mind that we've been blessed with our little Brielle for two years now.  My how the time has flown!  She is growing into such a fun, joyful, spirited, independent (no idea where she gets THAT from), loving little girl.  She gives THE best hugs and hearing her little voice say "I love you Mama" is just about the best thing I hear all day :).

We were so happy to have nana, papa, aunt "do-do" and Gizmo join us for Brie's birthday celebrations.  On her actual birthday we took her to the Austin zoo.  It's a very small sanctuary zoo and all of the animals there are rescued or donated.  They have peacocks (one of Brie's favorite phrases right now is, "Peacocks are LOUD!"), lions, tigers, bears, large tortoises, pigs, foxes, small monkeys, plus an area where you can feed greedy goats, deer and a llama :).  Brie LOVES this place.  We got a family membership so she and I can go every week or two to visit Mr. Lion and all his friends.  I'm sure BH2 will come to love the zoo as well.  Since it was her birthday we also tried the train ride for the first time.  It was just the right length for a new little 2-year-old and she loved it.  After the zoo we headed on over to Chick-fil-a where she once again refused to eat chicken nuggets or french fries.  She did however devour her cinnamon applesauce and milk...I guess I should be happy she's so healthy?  Later in the afternoon we gave her her gift from us, a new wagon.  She has seen other kids' wagons and loved them, so I was really excited to give her her own.  She immediately climbed in and wanted a ride.  I see many wagon rides in our future :)!  She enjoyed a few more presents from family and later in the evening we had her cake and ice cream.  She took one tiny bite of the cake and took it back out of her mouth...but, she did enjoy her ice cream (that's my girl!).  All in all I think she had a pretty fabulous day...but the fun was not over!

On Saturday we had a small family/close friend party.  Thank goodness my mom and sister were there to help!!  They (OK, and even my DAD too) helped make some pretty cute decorations, helped me clean, helped me get food prepped, and just helped me do whatever.  It was such a blessing to have them here!  Everyone arrived at 2 and we started off by viewing Brie's 2-year photo montage video.  She LOVES watching it and everyone else enjoyed her reactions to it as well.  Then we had some snacks before present time.  This is the first time that she really understood presents and was SO excited to dive into them.  She got some really fun things and is excited to play with all of her new toys and read her new books.  Then, her and her cousins enjoyed some time outside in the water table and swimming pool.  Luckily we had borrowed a canopy and there was pretty good cloud cover, so it wasn't toooo hot for a July afternoon in Texas :).  We ended with cupcakes and ice cream.  She decided she really enjoyed the "Happy Birthday" song that we all sang her and kept requesting we sing it again, and again, and again :).  Pretty cute!  She had a wonderful time and we were so glad to have everyone come and help her celebrate.

After all the celebrations were over we had to change focus and get her and me packed and ready for our trips.  Early (like EARLY) Sunday morning, Brie left for NE with nana, papa, Re, and Gizmo while I flew up to St. Louis for the week.  Brie is spending almost two weeks in NE while I help teach a class at Wash U and then attend an interpreting workshop back in Austin.  I'm already looking forward to August 2nd when I go get her back :)!  But, I know she is going to have a FABULOUS time being spoiled by nana, papa and auntie Re and I know she's in great hands.  Lucky for me, I am keeping VERY busy and don't have much time to dwell on how much I miss my girl...and of course the technology of video chat is helpful as well :).  Needless to say, the next 11 days can go ahead and fly by and I won't mind a bit!

Here are just a few of the MANY pictures we snapped during all the birthday fun (between me, nana and auntie Re we literally have hundreds and hundreds...it's hard not to when you have such a cute subject matter to photograph!).

 The Big 2!

 Little cake for her birthday--thanks Wal-Mart :)!

 Ready to celebrate with nana and papa!

 Love my little 2-year-old!

  Sit 'n Spin Fun!  I was amazed how quickly she figured this out.  She had a blast!

 Fun at the zoo!  

 Lawn  mower bubble maker from Auntie Re was a big hit too!!

 Our silly girl!  You would have thought she had eaten the whole piece of cake and all the ice cream...not just a few bites of ice cream and no cake :)!!

 Laughing at Papa :)

 Our little monkey--ready to party!!

 Me and my sweet girl!

 Ready for presents!

 Grandpa and Grandma  Halvorsen and Papa and Nana

 Yummy food!

 Chillin' in the new chair that Grandma Halvorsen MADE for her.  Such a talented lady!

 Outside fun!

 LOVE this picture of us!  I think it's one of the first with all of us looking at the camera and smiling!

 Blow out the candle!

 Yay!  Wagon ride time!

Three generations--I just love this photo :)!