One Month Old

Sweet Baby Klaas,

You are one month old and you've already changed SO much. I'd like to point out a few of the areas you've grown in...

Yes, you've gained A LOT of weight. When the doctors were worried about you losing so much weight right after you were born, I tried to tell them that I'd have you fattened up in no time. They gave me so much grief for letting you seep 6-8 hours at night because they thought I should be feeding you around the clock to get you to gain weight. I'm proud (and not one bit surprised) to say that we've proven them wrong! You're well over weight for your age. :)

We've been working on getting you on a schedule. This schedule, however, isn't exactly run by the clock. It goes like this: I feed you when you are hungry (usually between every two or three hours), then I keep you awake to play for a while, and then put you to sleep when you are tired. Whenever you wake up again is usually when you're hungry, so I feed you again, and then the cycle repeats itself until night time. At night, I feed you, change your diaper, and put you back in your bed. You're a rock star at putting yourself to sleep, so I never need to rock you or lose sleep trying to get you back to sleep. So far you are doing pretty good with this schedule. The only problem we've had is that sometimes you really would like to use me as a pacifier instead of taking a pacifier. Even though I really don't want another pacifier baby, I also don't want to fall into the same bad habit that I did with Maida when she was a baby and let you use me to pacify yourself.

We've been working on tummy time! You love it for the first 30 seconds and then you get tired or your big brother jumps on top of you. It's been a challenge to find a good time to put you down to play because Skogen is just full of testosterone and loves to wrestle (and hit or punch and bite!) at any chance he can. Sometimes I just feel like all I do all day is protect you from him!

We've been working on getting you to smile! You love to smile in the morning and late at night. Those are your happy times. Even though you don't smile too much in the afternoon (mostly because you like to take a big long nap in the afternoon), I haven't really been able to pinpoint your fussy time. You don't have one! Maybe that's because I hold you ALL THE TIME.

Truthfully, I was really worried when I found out that I was pregnant with you. I had one boy and one girl already, which made me feel well rounded. I was worried about how you were going to fit in. Daddy and I had things under control with two, because we could both take one kid and have it covered. Well, as you have entered into our lives, all worries have gone as I've realized that you make it more perfect than I ever could have imagined! Instead of one-on-one, we now have four-on-one because the rest of us are all working together to take care of you. It's a really cool bonding experience for us and you are getting just a little bit more than spoiled around here! :)

We love you so so much,

Mommy

Shopping in the Moby Wrap

I love love LOVE wearing my babies!

Preschool Registration

I'm registering this little big girl for preschool today...

And I wasn't prepared to be so sad about it! She will be going to preschool every Tuesday and Thursday morning and I'm almost to the point of devastation that I'm going to be away from her two mornings a week! Sounds silly, I know, but I've been with her for every minute of her life (besides my three hospital stays, a few date nights, and random errands when my mom or MIL are in town) for the last 1,331 days of her life. I can't imagine what kindergarten is going to be like. Uffda!

All Smiles

Klaasen was smiling at 1 week old. I know you think I'm crazy, but I

have two other witnesses besides myself. A few days ago I tried to get a smile on camera, but it was really hard because if I held the camera up, he'd just stare at it and wouldn't smile. As soon as I put the camera down, he'd look at me and smile. So, I tricked him! I focused

the camera, put it down, made him smile, and then quick brought the camera up and took a picture. I took a bunch of pictures of his chest and forehead because I didn't have time to look at what I was snapping, but finally after a million (or maybe a little less!) pictures, I finally caught the tail end of a smile...

And Klaasen's smile sort of reminded me a little bit of his big brother Skogen's smile...

And as long as we're comparing pictures, here are some profile pictures of the kids sleeping at two weeks old. Klaasen is in the middle, Skogen on the top, and Maida on the bottom. I think he's a pretty good combination of both of them!

Klaasen's First Bath

The other night, Klaasen seemed a little uncomfortable. After ruling out that he wasn't hungry or tired and he didn't need to poop, I discovered that his belly button cord had cracked and was loose and snagging on his shirt and diaper. Just looking at it made me want to pass out (there was some kind of yellow pussy-looking stuff under the cord and it stunk really bad), but luckily I'm married to a doctor! Dr. Daddy came and removed the cord, cleaned it up, and by the time I put Klaasen's diaper back on, his belly button looked like a normal big baby belly button (my little baby is growing up!!!)! So, Maida and I gave Klaasen his first bath a couple nights later. It was so fun to involve Maida and teach her how to bathe a baby. She was a great helper and so proud of herself.

Here's our clean baby after his bath. Look at those rolly arms already and check out his big baby button! A week ago he was up to 10 pounds 11 ounces already and I'm sure he's gained even more since then.

Maida's First Dentist Appointment

She did great! The only problem she had were the x-rays because they made her gag. We ended up only getting x-rays of the front teeth because the side ones were too hard for her. Dr. Ann said that she has perfect teeth like her Daddy and to keep up what we're doing! Maida got to pick out some prizes at the end and she decided to get some things for Skogen and Klaasen, too, even though she wouldn't admit to the dentist that she had two brothers. She kept telling the dentist that she has two sisters. Which reminds me of a conversation we had earlier this week...

Maida: Mom, how did you feel when you had a baby?

Mom: How did I feel?

Maida: Yeah, cause I felt pretty disappointed.

Mom: You felt disappointed when I had a baby? When I had baby Klaasen?

Maida: Yeah, cause I really wanted a sister, so I was really disappointed.

Mom: But when you saw him in the hospital, didn't you decide that a baby brother was okay because he was so cute?

Maida: Yeah, I guess so, but I think it's time for a sister, now. Maybe we could have a sister next summer to bring to the block party with us.

Thankful for Church Friends

Erik came home from drill early last weekend and surprised us! I was especially thankful because it meant that I didn't have to try to bring the three kids to church by myself! Church ended up going so well with three kids that we even went out to lunch with a whole bunch of our church friends afterwards!

The kids at the restaurant

Klaasen was so good! I fed him before we ate and then he slept the rest of the time in his car seat.

All five of us had friends there, even Klaasen! Oliver is about two months older than Klaasen.

Here is our great big table. You can't even see the end! There were 23 of us! I'm so thankful for our church friends.

Three Little Blessings

I could have a MILLION of these guys. They are AMAZINGLY good kids!

Look Who's Two Weeks Old!!

Going from being a family of four, to a family of FIVE, has been such a great journey for us. I have been so amazed at how natural it has been to welcome Klaasen into our family and surprised at how well the kids have taken to him. I have seen very little jealousy and I have seen love pour out of Maida and Skogen in ways that I have never seen either of them show love before.

I love seeing the tender side of Skogen, how he rubs Klaasen on the top of the head, calls him, "Bub,"(short for Buddy), and likes to kiss him (and it has to be on the lips!).

I love how Maida wants to help with everything and I imagine that through our special times of her helping me, I'm teaching her to be a mom. My favorite time is right before bed when Maida sings Klaasen to sleep. My heart just melts.

Life is so good. Even with the disappointment of having a C-section, even with the pain of the surgery, and the energy it has taken to recover, I can't stop smiling and feeling like we have surely been blessed. God is good.

I have been working on Klaasen's birth story, but I'm finding it hard to take the time away from my precious babies to type anything at all! However, before too much time passes, I wanted to document a little bit of how we came up with Klaasen's name...

Klaasen (pronounced "claw-sen")

We spent the first eight months of the pregnancy trying out different names. Nothing seemed right. We searched baby books, asked friends, and went through our family trees. Finally Erik made a list of a couple of his favorites, and I decided that I would chose from those. One boy name on his list that we both really liked was Klaus, a name that we discovered in my family tree. We also liked the names Klass and Klase. However, none of them went well with a last name that started with an S. One night while texting back and forth, Erik and I came up with the name Klaasen. We made up the spelling and used the two A's together to make a long A-sound because Erik liked how it was Finish-looking. :) After Klaasen was born, we also discovered that Klaus is a last name in Erik's family tree and that Klaasen is actually the name of an asteroid.

Burke

While looking for names, my Aunt Carol suggested the name Burke, after my great-grandma's maiden name. It was different, it had a K in it, and it was a family name! By the time I was five months pregnant, I was sure that I would use the name Burke if we had a boy. After some research on the internet, I discovered that Burke Mountain is the name of a ski resort in Vermont! PERFECT! Since Skogen had a ski name, I thought it was only right to have a ski name for Klaasen, too. However, Erik really didn't like it as a first name, so I nixed my idea of having a middle name that started with an R (to match Maida and Skogen's) and we decided to use it for a middle name.