Happy Birthday Nana/Baptism Pictures

First off, happy birthday Nana!  We hope you had a wonderful day!

Secondly, our friend Nik and my dad took pictures of Maya's baptism a couple of weeks ago.

As I mentioned before, the baptism included all kinds of Gosselin child screaming and/or crying.  But there were some good parts too, and our two wonderful photographers were able to capture them nicely.

Getting her gown on

Boom's group, Sanctuary, played for the service

Things started out well

Oooh, interesting.  Water.

Callie is interested too.

The start of the meltdown

Uncle Joe knows what's up

Screaming

Double screaming/crying

Still screaming

Yep.  Screaming.

Getting calmer

Doing better

Looking on while Maya is introduced to the congregation

Boom and Yoda playing together

The family

With Uncle Joe and her sponsors

Thanks again to everyone who joined us for the special day!

Videos

Both girls were working on new skills this weekend.

Callie wants desperately to be a little gymnast.  Her coordination isn't the greatest, but she has learned to do somersaults.  Sort of.

Then I showed her how to do a cartwheel (while being slightly astounded that I could still do one...along with a headstand), and decided after I tried to teach her how to cartwheel, that we were just going to stick to somersaults.


IMG 7715 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Maya has been working on laughing.  She giggles a little bit and has the brightest smile ever, but the belly laughing is still a work in progress.  She was almost there with Chris and I caught the tail end of it.  If anything, her smiles are adorable.



IMG 7753 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Holy moly fast weekend.

It was great because we didn't have very much planned, so we were able to just rest, relax, and enjoy time as a family.

Saturday
On Saturday morning both girls were up pretty early.  So we had some playtime in Callie's room while Daddy recovered from being out late on reserve duty.

This was probably my favorite part of the weekend.

Then we all headed to church since Chris had a meeting, and the girls and I hung out in the nursery.

Having the nursery to ourselves was awesome.

The rest of the afternoon was spent napping and playing at home.  Maya enjoyed some light reading.

Oh little goslings, lambs, and bunnies, you are adorable.

We went over to play with Charlie and Mabel for a little in the evening.  The preschoolers were up to no good in Charlie's room for awhile, and then all the big kids played while Maya looked on.

Seriously, what do you think is going on in Charlie's room?  He is swinging a stuffed
snake around and Callie is looking guilty on the bed.

Sunday
This morning was stupid daylight savings time.  So Callie was up at 6am...and we had a nice LONG morning before church.  By 8am I was already exhausted.  Maya was up for awhile pretty early too, but she then went down for a "nap" with Daddy...and they both slept for the extra hour and then some.  Callie (and I) did not...but we had fun making smoothies and painting finger nails. 

6:30-7:30am: Awake with Mommy
7:30-9:00am: Asleep with Daddy

Who doesn't want a different color on every nail?
And who doesn't love smoothies?
It was a good, if not LONG, morning.

Then of course we had a little football and more napping this afternoon.

Bah.  Vikings.  Get it together.

We went over to the condo for dinner and more play time. 

Play time with Maya Leigh

Silly sweet Callie Joy

Just in case you were wondering, yes Callie was wearing footie jammies most of the afternoon today.  Some battles are just not worth battling.  :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Favorite-Things-Phone-Dump Friday

Oh my goodness we made it.

We survived this crazy week of transition.

I think the transition was hardest on Callie.  The girl is so intuitive that I'm sure she picked up on some of my anxiety on top of feeling her own.  She also had a really bad cold, which didn't help her mood.  Her preschool teacher told us that she was sadder this week and "missed mom."  She had a few major meltdowns...the kind that we haven't seen in months.  It has been rough.  That being said, she did pretty well with G-ma and Boom.  Thankfully.

As for Maya, she seemed to do pretty great with her various caretakers, though she still is very resistant to the bottle.  Because of that (and my first favorite thing of this week), I got a visitor (or two) during my lunch time every day so SHE could eat lunch.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

So she's been eating about 2 meals less a day.  She's sort of making up for it in the evenings, but nothing too out of control.  And let's be honest, there is a reason her daddy calls her "Chub Chub."  She'll be okay.  But I really hope she'll figure out the bottle soon.

As for me, it has been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster ride.  It is so sad to leave the girls, but I really do love my job.  So I'm working on finding balance, trying to shake off the mom guilt, and find a groove that works for me and our family.

Chris is learning the nuances of having two for extended amounts of time since he has them on Tuesdays.  The girls are so lucky to have a Daddy day.

On to the other favorite things...

Favorite Thing #2: Monday with this girl



Favorite Thing #3: Friends, pumpkins and costumes

Favorite Thing #4: Evenings at home

Favorite Thing #5: Miss Independent- she can put her coat on by herself (mostly) thanks to preschool.

IMG 7629 from Baby Goose on Vimeo.

Favorite Thing #6: Happy girls

Favorite Thing #7: Happy Halloween!

And now it is the weekend...my most favorite thing of all!

TBT: Halloween Style

Happy Halloween everybody!

I have a few Halloween throwbacks, and then a couple other ones to post before November hits and I get to look at a new month (April 2010) of Callie pictures.

As you can see, in Halloweens past, Kona was an integral part of the costume theme we had going.  Now that there are 2 children, Kona's matching costume days are behind her.

2010: A happy bee and a mad bee
2011: A happy cow and a mad cow
2012: A happy cowgirl and a mad bull
2013: Mermaids

But Kona is still has a costume this year.

2013: A mad pirate.  Argh.

On to a couple other throwbacks...

Playing with Chewy the giraffe

Working on  the baby bald spot

And lastly, I'll bring it back to the Halloween theme. We usually see the Held family around Halloween, and this year was no exception.  They came over on Monday night for pumpkin carving and costumes.  So after taking the picture of the four kids, I thought I'd dig up Charlie and Callie's first Halloween.

Treats QOTD

Aaaahhhh Halloween week.  The time when you have a bowlful of candy in your house and your preschooler tries to use all manner of trickery to get as much sugar into her system as possible.

Callie: (holding up a piece of candy) Can I have one of these treats?
Me: No.  You JUST had a sucker.
Callie: (leaving to find Chris) Daddy, can I have one of these treats?
Chris: Go talk to Mom.
Callie: I did. She said no. Can you say yes?

At least she is honest.

As for me, I had a good first day back today.  Though Miss Maya did not want to eat from the bottle for Chris.  So I got a mid-day visitor.

Can't say I disappointed!

She is with G-pa tomorrow...hopefully the change of scenery will entice her to do more than just gum the bottle.  We shall see. 

Maternity Leave

The days could be long.

But the weeks flew by.

The three months were like a blink of an eye.

I couldn't be more thankful and grateful for this time with my girls.