Drew--April Soccer

There were so many great pictures of Drew, taken by his teammate's mom, that I just uploaded several and put them in a slideshow. He's having a great season...just a few more games to go in May!!

Uncle Brad and Aunt Brittani visit...Drew's Piano Recital!!

April 27th: Uncle Brad and Aunt Brittani came to meet Will. Here's Uncle Brad with his two nephews!

Aunt Brittani, Will, and Drew (again!)...her two nephews as well!
Drew is ready and looking sharp for his piano recital! Mom and Will are ready to go too!! I think Will could hum Eine Kleine by this point!
Here's Drew in his duet with his friend, Joshua. They were in preschool for two years together, and Joshua's aunt, Wendy, is Drew's piano teacher. Joshua's mom, Amy, is also a very talented singer and pianist. They were the youngest duet and they did an awesome job. Here they are with Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik...



And here is Drew's solo piece...The Juggler...



And here is a picture of Drew and Joshua together after the recital. As soon as I snapped the picture, Joshua said "You want to play it again?" and they ran back to the piano and played it together again! They were both very excited to do the duet!

First outdoor excursion...and more

April 25: Everyone that knows us knows we are an outdoor family...love to go for walks, hit the parks, bike rides, anything outdoors. Here are Matthew and Drew, and Will, Grandma Helen, and I after Will's first walk around the circle!

Here's a close up of the little guy...

Here are some videos of the kids playing outside...I'm not sure which day these are from (camera doesn't record dates on videos) but it was around this time during Grandma Helen's stay...

April 26...cuddling with mommy...
His little burping position...
Hanging out with daddy...
Getting "loved" by sisters...

One week old!

April 24th: Happy one week, Will!! And Happy 9th Anniversary to us! What an amazing 9 years! Will's umbilical cord fell off today so he got his first real bath, in the kitchen sink to the amazement of Drew and Katie, and here he is posing after his bath...

Extreme close up!!

I love this picture...I love his little feet. He's such a happy, content little baby!

Daddy and his boys...

We have pictures of all the other kids next to some object to show how tiny they are...Rich took this picture of Will in his boppy with these objects :) Alex's sippy and the flash light...funny how big the flashlight looks...it's a pretty small flash light!

More pictures...

April 22nd: Will was laying in his pack-n-play and I wanted to get a picture of his little newborn profile...




Amazing...love the fuzzy hair!




Finally got a picture of Aunt Andi with Will on her last night with us...she was in the delivery room when Will was born and stayed with us for a whole week! The kids were very happy to have her here and I don't know how we would have done it without her! She looks a wee bit exhausted, huh? Drew, Katie, and Alex ran her crazy!!
Katie is really infatuated with this little guy...she holds him every chance she gets!

April 23rd: Aunt Andi headed home and Grandma Helen came to stay with us! She played some basketball with Drew (in Matthew's driveway)...
Cool pictures Rich took of Drew shooting...he's quite the little basketball player...he'll beat you at P-I-G almost all the time!
Swoosh!!! April 24th: Grandma Helen and Katie playing with their newspaper boats they made...unfortunately, we dropped the ball again and didn't get a picture of Grandma holding Will...but she did hold him a lot!

Visit from Aunt Allison and her girls

April 21st: Aunt Allison, Halle, Ashlynne, and Jocelyn came to visit and meet Baby Will!! The kids were so excited they were coming! Here's a quick picture of Katie with Will "kissing" her...one of her favorite things!

The cousins are here! Katie and Halle danced for a while, eventually all 4 girls had on princess dresses, but we don't have a picture of that...here's Katie getting ready to dance away...with Alex, Halle, and Ashlynne watching her.

Then they decided to play the piano for a little while, giving Drew a break since he had been playing for them! Halle and Alex, rocking the piano!
Halle and Alex watching Katie dance while Drew plays the piano.
Halle joins Katie to dance, dance, dance! They had so much fun together. They are so close in age, it is fun to see them playing.
Aunt Andi holding Jocelyn...

Ashlynne driving the "Vamanos"...everyone loves the vamanos.

Here's a video of the girls dancing...



Halle and Drew playing piano together...



Unfortunately, I wasn't quite with it taking pictures...we took some early on, but I was very sad later to realize I didn't get any pictures of Aunt Allison holding Will. We are so glad they were able to come and visit and meet Will while he was still so tiny. The kids loved playing with their cousins, and they can't wait to see them again!!!!

Will comes home!

April 19th: Everyone came back today to take Will and Mommy home! Katie just couldn't wait to hold Will again, you can see her excitement in the first video below, but here is a picture of her, the proud big sister...

Will looked so tiny in his carseat...

Ready to go home!
Here are a couple of videos of the kids and Will, before we left the hospital...

The Footes meet Will

April 18: Later that day, our very good friends and neighbors, the Footes came to meet Will. Matthew thought he was pretty cool!


Here's Kelly, our babysitter, with her soon-to-be newest little charge...
And Miss Lisa (who will spoil Will rotton!!)...Bob was there too, but he somehow avoided any pictures...

Drew, Katie, and Alex meet Will

April 18th: Daddy and Nana brought the kids to the hospital to meet their new baby brother! Drew was very excited to hear the news that morning that he had a baby brother...though his first question was not whether it was a boy or a girl, but what time was he/she born! He's a bit obsessed with time right now! Katie said she wanted a sister and was a little upset he was a brother...until she met him. She ran right into the room and her face just lit up when she saw him for the first time, then she wanted to hold him right away!

That's a happy look!

Rich had shown the kids the video of Will right after he was born, so Alex was already familiar with her "baby brother" and she came running in to meet him too, yelling "baby brother, baby brother!" It was too sweet. As soon as Katie hopped up, Alex climbed up beside me and said "I hold baby brother too."

Then it was Drew's turn. He was still so excited to have a brother! And he kept saying that Will was just the perfect name!

They gave me an extra big room in the postpartum unit this time...they said they saved the rooms for moms with lots of kids ;) It worked out well, because the kids (especially Alex) had lots of room to run, and they actually lasted several hours in the hospital visiting! Alex really liked my gigantic water bottle, and she was so funny carrying it around since it was almost as big as her! (And there's Nana holding Will, somehow we didn't get a close up picture of them!)

After a while, Alex pooped out and climbed up to rest with me, she even put her legs under the covers! We found some good Nick, Jr. cartoons and the girls ate an apple while we hung out together. It was such a nice time.

Here are attempts at our first "family of 6" pictures. Nearly impossible to get a decent picture of this many people! Our beautiful family...