Krista's Gymnastic Season Montage!!!

Here it is! The montage I created for Krista's trainer Iza, who is leaving our club. I hope she likes it! I sent her the one with a different beginning and I like this one better so I'll post this one for all of you to see. I worked really hard on this, staying up until 2 a few nights...It stinks being a perfectionist! :)

So without further ado...Krista's 2008-2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics Season. A dedication to Iza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hZRYjbHpUc

Whirlwind of a weekend

WHAT A WEEKEND. I think this was the busiest, most draining of weekends that we've had in a long time! Friday of course was Krista's 10th birthday. We went all out and made it a very special day for her. I was also busy baking cakes for her school party Thursday night... She said it was her best birthday ever so it was a sucess :) On Saturday, she had her First Communion rehearsal during the day, and in the evening she had a gymnastics/music school show. It was really neat and I'll be posting pictures of that soon. We arrived for the show at 7 and left at 10:15, so it was very tiring. Then, on Sunday bright and early we were up getting ready for Krista's BIG day. It isn't easy getting everyone into dress clothes and out the door, fed, and happy, but we managed! I can't believe that she already has celebrated her First Holy Communion. I'm anxious to share photos of that very special day (SOON!). It was a very memorable day for sure! It was also Father's Day so we celebrated Daddy in the afternoon and went out to dinner last night to celebrate both the First Communion and Father's Day. Wheeew, I'm tired just writing about all the activities! Evan was an ANGEL for all of the events! On Friday he got his SECOND TOOTH! I'll post that too and so he was in complete peace again---back to his old, calm self. It was perfect timing because we really needed him to be good for both 3 hour gym show and also the ceremony in the church!!!! And that he was....a TOTAL dream baby! He's back to sleeping again at night and napping well in the day. Those little teeth sure caused him a lot of pain. I guess we are homefree now until the uppers start hurting. I think we have at least 6 or 7 weeks before that will happen. Anyway, all in all it was a WONDERFUL and MEMORABLE weekend with LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of photos and video. I was one busy Mom trying to capture all the moments---10th Birthday, Gymnastics Show, First Communion, 2nd Tooth, Father's Day--what a weekend! PICTURES to come!!!

Krista is TEN years old today!

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY KRISTA!! XO XO XO

10 Years of happiness...

40 Seasons of wonder...

120 Months of fun and laughs...

3653 Days of growth and discovery....

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY Krista!

Is this really possible? A decade of motherhood to Krista? "Just" 10 years ago I was on the verge of a change of a lifetime. I would soon be a mother to my first child, and life would never be the same.

On that sunny morning of June 19th 1999, I had NO idea how my life was about to change...and what these last 10 years would bring me. I hadn't the faintest idea what beautiful treasures were in store for me, what fortune I would behold. My oh my, how 10 years can change things. I now have FOUR beautiful, gorgeous, precious children and two whole handfuls of years of experience as a Mom!!!

Krista Marie is TEN today. I am so proud to be her Mom!! She is such an amazing individual and this post won't nearly do her justice, but I just wanted her to know how PROUD I am to be her Mom and what an amazing girl I think she has turned out to be!

I am always amazed with Krista. She seems to learn everything with ease. She definately has a knack for learning and growing and such a strong desire to achieve. She is an amazing "straight A" student, in a country that isn't even her "mother" tongue, she is a fabulous rhythmic gymnast...a beautiful ballerina, a classy tap dancer, a budding author and a genuine ARTIST!!! Her drawings and stories are entrancing! She has such a sense of fashion and style too, a really "cool" little chicky. I think everyone will agree that being around Krisa is fun...she is a comedian, has a wonderful smile and laugh, a witty personality and is just generally a GREAT kid to be around!

So today is my day to shine the limelight on Krista, and actually this whole weekend as Krista's gymnastics evening and First Holy Communion are this weekend too, so there will be a lot on Krista to come.

I LOVE YOU KRISTA and HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY 10th Birthday to you!!

Krista has BRACES!!!

Look at this! Krista got her braces on today. Doesn't she look SO much older. I love the before and after shot of the series :) I COMPLETELY remember that stage of my life. It is so strange to have a child that is the age that I remember so clearly.

She was really happy right after she got them on, but now the pain is setting in so she isn't so happy. Poor Krista! She got a little kit with interdental cleaners, wax and other goodies. I remember loving those kits.

She chose purple braces (see photo). She has the option of changing the color every 6weeks at her appointments. Right now it looks like she'll have them on for a year to a year and a half depending on how things move. She has 6 braces across the top and a fixed wire retainer on the bottom. She is just miserable now with the pain, but I gave her tylenol a few minutes ago so hopefully she will be able to eat soon. Right now she can't bite down at all.

Fifth's Disease

Looks like we have a case of Fifth's disease on our hands! We went to the doctor on Saturday and he said that is most likely the culprit, but there are also other viruses that look similar and it is hard to tell exactly which virus without a blood titer (not necessary)! She is fine and the rash is clearing up but I've noticed I also have a fine rash on my arms and chest. Lets hope the breastfeeding protects little baby Evan! I know for a fact that I was negative for Fifth's Disease (parovirus 19) since I had my titers checked before my pregnancy with Kaitlyn. Looks like I've finally caught it and THANKFULLY it wasn't during my pregnancy with Evan. This time last year I was only about 8 weeks pregnant so that would have been BAD! I'm just glad it is this year and not last year. Hopefully the others won't get the face rash because we have Krista's First Communion on Sunday! We have her gorgeous dress ready and waiting and it would be so much nicer without a nasty viral rash!

I'll update later with the report from Krista's Orthodontal appointment tonight. She gets her braces on today and tomorrow. I'm excited for her! I remember that stage of my life like it was yesterday. It is sort of fun to be the Mom now and not the patient!

Evan's 4th Month Update

Well, it has now become standard for me to post my updates at the end of each month. I now offically have only 1 day left to get up his 4 month report so I better get cracking! This month has been a busy one. Evan is growing and developing faster than I can even believe. He has changed so much in one month! Of course the big news is his first tooth, which popped out on Toomas birthday. Other big events include rolling both directions--stomach to back and back to stomach. This has only happened once, but I'm sure he'll master it very shortly. Last month he really didn't like spending much time on his stomch at all, but now he is at least willing to play on his tummy for a few minutes. Evan is such a strong little guy. He can stand up already in the exersaucer and spends a few minutes each day standing and playing. He can pass toys from one hand to the other (with ease) and can put anything into his mouth (even very small objects, so we need to be careful). He LOVES sucking his fingers. He used to be a thumb sucker, but this month he has decided that he prefers his right hand middle fingers with his palm facing outwards. It is the cutest thing in the world! Evan is a social little man. He just adores attention and people surrounding him. He is just thrilled when someone talks to him and lights up with beautiful, warm smiles! He really melts my heart with his personality..he is such a loving little one. As for eating, this month Evan has clearly been nursing less. He is so much more interested in the world now and has cut down nursing times due to distraction and teething pain. He is still growing at a fast rate so I'm guessing he has just learned to get the maximum amout of milk in a very short time. The doctor reminded me that the majority of his milk will come in the first 5 minutes of nursing. Sleep this month has been on and off. Some nights will be GREAT---8 or more hours, but the last week has been hard, especially the last 2 nights. He doesn't want to be put down and wakes after only 3-4 hours. I'm assuming it is either the heat (will be 31 C today) or the 2nd bottom tooth on the way. He is drooling like a faucet so it is probabally a combination of both irritating factors. He is still a doll. Just a perfect little guy and I'm enjoying every second of him. He is still sleeping in the bassinet next to our bed but we are weeks away from a change. At 67 cm he is nearly maxing out the cot, and once he can freely roll he will definately need to be in the big crib. On another note, Kaitlyn is still sleeping in her crib. She has no intention of moving and is very very happy in her "cribby". We have tried to con her into her Strawberry Shortcake bed (all neatly set up in her room) but she has taken no interest, except for pretending to sleep there. Looks like I'll soon have one moving into a big crib and one moving out! Changes on the horizon! :)

All four snuggled in our bed!

FUN times screaming!

I'll get pics up for yesterdays post soon...but I just didn't want to forget this video that I upload a few weeks ago. It was when Evan learned about his "screaming voice"..He loves to scream, but in a nice way! So much fun to make noise like the big kids can do! Enjoy!

Teething Time for Evan!

Yes you read that post correctly. Little tiny Evan Thomas, at only 4 months old has sprouted his first tooth. Erik had his first tooth at 5 months, Kaitlyn I believe was nearly 7 and Krista was 6 months. I'm amazed that he is teething, but NOT surprised. He has been drooling and putting his hands in his mouth for at least 6 weeks now and I knew they were on their way. The poor guy is in SO much pain. I took him to the doctor 2x last week (one was conjuntivitis) and the next time was just because he as SO unbearable and had a clear runny nose. He wants to be held constantly and is nursing just TERRIBLY. Part of it was the nose. I could hear him having a lot of difficulty breathing, but today the nose is almost clear and he is still not nursing for as long as usual. I know that before the teeth sprout there can be a lot of pain and pressure to nurse, so I should have known it was teething pain. Also when I give him tylenol he is able to nurse perfectly about 40 minutes later....so pain is definately the culprit. I was worried about an ear infection but it looks like teething since yesterday the pediatrician said all looks perfect.

Yesterday he had his well baby visit and I complained to the doctor about his difficulty in nursing, coupled with wanting to be held constantly when awake and putting BOTH hands in his mouth (and constant drooling). The doctor said it was highly unlikely that it was teeth yet. WRONG. Bottom lower right incisor is on its way today!! I'm glad that he'll soon be out of pain (once the other one goes), but a little worried about how difficult he is going to be in getting teeth. Maybe it will just be these 2 that pose the problem and then he'll get used to the pain of teething. Wishful thinking I'm sure! I think some kids are just better teethers than others. This little sweetie just doesn't like the pain. I still can't believe he is getting his first teeth already. HE WAS JUST BORN!! WOW. On the stats yesterday..he weighed in at 8,560 grams and was 67 cm tall. This puts him nearly off the charts on weight...maybe in the 99% percentile or possibly even slightly over... (hooray for Mother's Milk!) and he was about 80% for height. These are based on French standards for a 4 month and 3 week old. The doc was impressed with his strength and development. He was amazed how well Evan could sit and stand already. He LOVES standing and can honestly hold his weight for a few seconds...and as previously posted, that is a good bit of weight! He's more than doubled his birthweight. I'm just amazed that he can keep up this rate while sleeping so long at night. 8.5 hours without nursing is the norm these days and has been for a few months. I was sure he'd slow down his weight gain once he started sleeping through the night but this is not happening. I'm sure it will taper off soon...especially as he is getting more and more active. Next appointment is in 2 months (hooray no shots) and the doc said we could start toying with food at around 6 or 6.5 months. With Erik I didn't start until he was 7 months. I can tell Evan is INTERESTED in food. He is always watching us eat and opens and closes his mouth when he sees us eat. I think we'll give some fruits and veggies a go once we are in the USA this summer. So that is the update on our little boy. Fussy teething times, but all is well. :)

Toomas' Birthday!!!

Today we celebrated the BEST Dad in the world's birthday!!! We had a pizza party (of course!) and some YUMMY French strawberry cream cake. We decorated the room for Toomas this afternoon so he had a nice surprise when he got home from work. We opened presents including the small crafts that the kids and I worked on this weekend. All in all it was a hit!! Wishing Toomas the absolute BEST year ahead :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!

Krista's 10th Birthday Party!!

On Saturday we celebrated Krista Marie's TENTH birthday!!! She won't actually be turning 10 until the 19th, but with her First Communion coming up, we decided to celebrate it early. It was a HUGE HIT! Krista had so much fun with her friends! Krista invited 7 friends and only one couldn't make it. We had initally planned on celebrating at the local mini-golf course, but at the last minute we decided to hold it at home and wait for a warmer day to play golf (right now we're planning on the 27th of June for part II of the party). Part I was GREAT! The kids played games (hide and seek, musical chairs etc), we had a drawing contest and made a cupcake factory for the kids. They had so much fun decorating their cupcakes with the colored frosting and toppings. This year I went all out and tried to be creative for Krista's birthday cakes. She always LOVES and looks forward to my cake creations so each year the bar is raised higher and higher. Mommy's score this year? A perfect 10!! I'll attach photos of the cakes below. I made a castle cake and also a monkey this year. Both were devoured and praised by the kiddies :) After the party was over Krista had 2 guests stay on for a sleep-over party. There was a local village "tarte-flambee" evening (like creamy pizza) so Toomas took the girls and Erik there for an outing. They returned at about 10 pm after having had so much fun out on the town...I thought they would have been tired out from that but THEY WERE UP UNTIL 3 a.m.! Pretty tiring for me, but a girl only turns 10 once, right!

The plan for the upcoming fun this month: June 10th, Toomas' birthday, June 19th- Krista's REAL 10th Birthday, June 20th Krista's end of the year Gymnastics party and show, June 21st Krista's First Communion, June 27th Krista's Mini-Golf party!!! WOW, fun times ahead...Tomorrow Evan goes in for his 3rd round of vaccines (NO FUN!) I'll update his stats tomorrow. So much has been going on but I HAVE been taking pictures and making mental blogs! I'm sure you'll be in for a swarm of upcoming posts soon (including Mother's Day yesterday. We only celebrate the French one now so it was my big day!)

Here are the shots of the birthday party fun! Enjoy :)

Krista and Iza!

I went to the gym tonight to discuss the plan for next season with Krista's trainer and the head of the club. Iza is Krista's beloved trainer and is very unfortunately leaving our club. We are SO sad about this. Iza is an amazing gymnast herself (from Georgia, a country where rhythmic gymnastics is practiced at a very high level) and is such a talented coach as well!! We were SO spoiled this year to have such dedication from Iza. She spent so much time and effort this season training Krista and the results were clearly visible! The progress Krista has made this year is amazing and it is thanks to Iza. Tonight I took a few photos of them together. It would be a miracle if for some reason Iza decided not to move. Oh how I have my fingers crossed for this!!!

Let me put this translation up for Iza...Who knows if it will be logical since it is an automatic translation....

Я пошел к сегодне вечером гимнастики обсудить план на следующий сезон с тренером и головкой Krista клуба. Iza тренер Krista любимый и очень несчастливо выходит наше клуб. Мы НАСТОЛЬКО унылы о этом. Iza изумительный гимнаст себя (от Грузия, страна где звукомерная гимнастика напрактикована на очень высокопоставленном) и такая талантливая карета также!! Мы были ПОЭТОМУ баловали этот год для того чтобы иметь такое посвящение от Iza. Она потратила так много время и усилие эта тренировка Krista сезона и результаты было ясно видимо! Прогресс Krista делал этот год изумитен и спасибо Iza. Сегодня вечером i приняла немного фото их совместно. Было бы чудом если по какой - либо причине Iza решил не двинуть. Oh как я имею мои перста быть пересеченным для этого!!!

Evan at 4 Months

Here's the little man at 4 mos. So far he's off to a good start! Last night he slept 6.5 hours in his first stretch, followed by 6 hours. This seems to be the schedule lately, so I'm happy with that :) He's grabbing toys and putting ANYTHING and everything into his mouth now. He's also drooling up a storm so I think we'll have an EARLY teether on our hands. I took these photos a few days ago. He's getting to be so fun now with everyone- laughing and smiling. We don't have our next dr's appt until June, but on my baby scale he is weighing 8, 150 g so he's one BIG guy!

Kaitlyn's 3 Year Portraits

I did a little 3 year photoshoot of Kaitlyn... Here are a few shots!

Long eyes!

I just updated Evan's 3 Month report (a few posts down) so you can read that if you're interested. I'll be posting his 4 Month report soon considering he turned 4 months on Friday!

Today Krista headed off for a 2 day field trip to the mountains with her class. We bought her a sleeping bag and rain boots a few weekends ago so she was all set for this a.m! She is really looking forward to her field trip. The will be back tomorrow night, so tonight it just the three. She took her new camera *an early birthday present, so I'm sure we'll have some wonderful pictures when she returns!

The "long eyes" is a funny story. Kaitlyn keeps saying how Baby Evan has such PRETTY, LONG EYES!!! She'll come up and say "Look at his LONG eyes Mommy, they're so pretty!".... So I decided to take a few pictures of his long eyes. He has the longest eyelashes for a baby his age. When he was only a few days old he already had long lashes, but there was ONE single eyelash that was at least twice as long as the others..it was really funny. Now that they've darkened they are really beautiful. I tried to get a few close ups while he was sleeping.

CLICK photo to see for yourself!!

Newborn Portraits

These are some of my favorite newborn poses of Evan. I've been going back through my January albums this week and reminiscing a bit. I took these when he was 2 weeks old. He is SO small and new in these pictures. I have taken so many shots that it is hard to find my actual favorites, but from this particular day these are my top pics. I SO enjoy shooting newborns! I will post more if I find any that I can't resist sharing.

Weekend activities

I'm just having so much fun with Evan now. He is my savior at the moment!! I have Erik and Krista who are at each other's throats for 1/2 the day, then Kaitlyn who is entering the "Terrible Three's" and then my SWEETHEART Evan!!!! Ahhh. He is really my sunshine...all dressed in yellow too....and I forgot to mention, he pulled 8.5 hour night-stretches all weekend. HOOORAY for sleeping babies! :)

We had a nice long weekend here in France, although it wasn't Mother's Day here yet. I believe Mother's Day is the 1st of June this year, so it is coming up. Frodau was Victory Day (1945 over Germany) so it was another long weekend here in France. I think 3 out of the 4 weekends in May are 3 day weekends. We managed to get the yard in shape (mowing trimming, sweeping), get some clothes shopping done for the kids on Saturday, and yesterday Toomas put in the new fancy lights up for the entry-way. They are the same post lights that we have on the terrace. The electrician's passed by on Thursday to put in the lines. They look great!

Evan is a SITTING boy!

The little Evan man loves to sit up now, just like a big guy! Amazing to me that he is striving to do this already. Wasn't he just born? (like last week???!!!). Anyway, he has been doing these little crunches for about a week now. He'll be in a semi-lying position (on the boppy or bouncy seat) and he will crunch up to try to sit. In his bouncy seat he will grab the bar and pull up to sit. I put him on my boppy pillow yesterday (lying on his back) and he pulled himself right up to sitting. He's so happy now!