Happy Thanksgiving

We had our first Michigan Thanksgiving and Kate's first Thanksgiving here at our house. Gigi and Grampy Jeff drove up to b here with us. My mom basically cooked everything (I made the pumpkin pie) and my dad played with the girls. We had way more food than four people could, due in part to my dad's stellar turkey carving skills. Kate slept through the entire dinner, and Annie had exactly two bites of turkey and rejected all other foods before leaving the table. We did have a very nice day. Thanks to my parent for coming up and doing everything for us!

Even before the turkey got to them, Daddy and Kate took a nap together.

After resting up, Matt was ready to eat this giant turkey leg. And yes, we had Christmas Ale with our Thanksgiving dinner. :)

Don't we look lovely?
Annie looks quite a bit more enthusiastic about Thanksgiving dinner in this picture than she was about actually eating it.
Our little turkey :)
Annie's giving Grampy kisses. She already knows how to work him.

Spoiled Already

I put her in bed with me this morning after I fed her at 6 a.m. When I woke up at 8 a.m., I was on the other pillow and Kate was sleeping like a princess. Good thing Matt was on call--the bed would not have been big enough for the three of us!

My 27th Birthday...

is today.
I briefly considered listing 27 things that made this the worst birthday ever. But that is sort of depressing. So here's just a few:
1. Matt is on call. All alone one my birthday :(
2. Both girls screamed when I was trying to get them ready to leave the house to go to the store and get dinner.
3. Got in a car accident (not my fault and we're fine) on the way to the store. Was freaked out that my 3-week-old was not ok, so turned around and went home.
4. Annie puked all over herself, me, the couch and the floor shortly after returning home.
5. Annie puked again 20 minutes while I was feeding Kate and could do nothing about it.
6. Kate cried for the next hour and a half after all the puke was cleaned up.

Annie is crying again, so I have to stop there. How I wish that was a joke.

I hope this is not a preview of what my next year will be like. And on the bright side, my parents are coming tomorrow, so Matt and I are going out!! Alone!! And I got a number of birthday calls from my friends and family. So I guess it wasn't a total loss. :)

Sisters!

Callista got the girls these cute sister shirts. I love them. Very little makes me happier than matching little girls. (Really, I was so excited Kate was a girl so I can force she and Annie to dress alike!) Annie is such a good big sister. She kisses Kate goodnight every night and we have to check on Baby Tate every morning before we can start our day. For her part, Kate is an equally great little sister. She hardly ever cries when Annie screeches and screams during her naps or even when Annie gets a little overzealous in her affection.

My plan was to take a picture of each girl separately in their shirts as well, but alas..my camera died before I could get Kate. So here she is in her jammies before I changed her.

Pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

On Sunday, we took a ride to Port Clinton to have dinner with Matt's dad's side of the family. We had called Matt's Aunt Connie to tell her we were coming, but no one else knew. Ha! What a lucky surprise for them :)
Connie is a fabulous cook, so we ate a ton of food and had a great time visiting. Annie loved it, too. She ran around the whole time playing with the kids. Lucky Courtney spent that day of her break from OU chasing the kids around and keeping them entertained. We owe her some sort of gift, I think. Kate was pretty good. Everyone was just meeting her for the first time, so there was no shortage of arms to hold her.

Kate and Great Grandpa Ralls. I love the look on Kate's face :)

Kate and Aunt Connie.

Ella and Courtney. Ella wore this hat around for awhile, and it was really cute.

Annie and Mallory playing the piano. Don't they look like they are completely in sync?

Mallory, Annie and Brady. If it looks like Brady is yelling "Rock and roll!" it's because he was :) And what rocking they were doing. Lucky for all you blog readers this isn't a video.

Visit With The Puchs

The Puchmeyers came to visit us and meet Kate this weekend. Here is how it went:
-Kate cried the whole night before. All night.
-Annie cried in the morning. In a move of stellar parenting, I had to bribe her with a Pop Tart to even get her to come downstairs.

-Kate cried some more.
-Annie threw a number of tantrums.
-Puchmeyers arrived with lovely gifts (including more Christmas Ale!!) and a well-behaved Bella.
-Honestly, the middle is sort of a blur I can't remember exactly because my kids were being awful, and I was really tired. We did watch pieces of the of OSU vs U of M game. And I did drink some Christmas Ale and gossip with Callista. That part was quite fantastic :)
Annie and Bella did play together quite a bit, as well. Although Annie acted crazy. This is the only picture I have, which I guess is rather appropriate.

-Annie takes an all too brief nap with Matt (he was post-call) and later has a complete and total meltdown, causing Matt to feed her dinner by herself and threaten to put her to bed right then. They were pretty cute sleeping on Annie's big girl bed, though.

-In a brief period of happiness on Annie's part, she and Bella take a bath. That was quite cute.

-At bedtime, after we lay her down, Annie strips naked and pees all over her crib. She misses her pillows, but gets Kitty. We have to convince her to sleep with Mickey Mouse instead.
-Callista graciously holds and rocks Kate (who was crying again) while I clean up Annie and some of my house. I am an awesome hostess.
-We all go to bed.
-Annie wakes everyone up early the next morning.
-We eat McDonalds.
-We try to take pics of Annie and Bella together. Annie will not cooperate, so I go back to my old standby. As soon as the words, "I'll give you some Yogos" leaves my mouth Annie sits and smiles like an angel. I will post this adorable pic when I steal it off Callista's blog or she e-mails it.
-The Puchmeyers drive as fast as they can out of the state of Michigan. (Not really, they were really very gracious about the whole situation.)

We were really excited Callista, Jason and Bella came to visit. We missed them and it was so fun to hang out! We do not, however, expect them to want to come again any time soon. Our door is always open to them, and when we come to visit when their 2nd little girl arrives we will make no judgments whatsoever on the state of their household :) (which, let's face it, has to be better than ours was on Saturday).

Oh, and things have been much better since then. The girls calmed down and are acting generally lovely again.

The most wonderful time of the year.

The Nancinator came to visit and help out Kerri while I was on call. When I came home I was tired, but happy to have the chance to converse with my mother... I was ecstatic to learn it would be over one of these. Great Lakes has not made it to Michigan yet, it just made it to Toledo in the last year or two. I mentioned it in passing a while ago to Dad and he made sure we didn't go the holiday season without some. Its both my and Kerri's favorite beer and essentially what our marriage is based on. For those of you who have tried it, its in stores now. For those of you haven't... shame on you. When you do try it, be careful. The odds of you peeing in the sock drawer and being late to work triple with every bottle. This stuff packs a punch.

Kate's First Bath

We finally gave Kate her first real bath tonight. She really needed it! She's still so little that we just put her in the bathroom sink. It was still warm in there from Annie's bath time, and it worked out perfectly. Kate only cried a little bit. Otherwise, she just sat there patiently while we took her picture and washed her off. Such a good girl :)

Look at that chubby face!

Elmo Feet

Annie was recently given these fabulous Elmo slippers as a gift. Our friends Amy and Carolyn came to visit from Toledo this weekend. They brought adorable outfits for Kate, and these Elmo slippers. Annie yelled "Elmo!" as soon as she opened the bag. She now is obsessed with her "Elmo feet," as she calls them. We put them on and take them off all day. They are so cute on her, and they are extra hilarious when she runs. Thanks Amy and Carolyn!

If you're wondering about the weird faces Annie is making in the pictures--this is what you get when you ask her to say "cheese." I tried to just ask her to smile, but she doesn't quite get it yet. She is quite excellent at yelling "cheese," however.

Happy Birthday Jackie

My sister Jackie came to visit us and meet Kate last week--on Jackie's birthday! Had Kate not arrived on her own, the doctor was going to induce me the night of Nov. 10, meaning I probably would have had her on the 11th. Jackie was hoping that would work out, but she graciously still visited (even bearing gifts!) on that day. Thanks for visiting Jackie!

And bonus pictures of the girls:

So sweet. So deceptive.

Her hat's a little big for her sweet baby head :)

A Nice Big Sister

Annie is a fabulous big sister so far. She always asks to hold Kate and likes to share with her. She even is willing to share her lovey and kitty, by far her most prized possessions. She does need to take them back from time to time, but she does share. She always responds to Kate's noises and asks where "Baby Tate" is if she can't see her.

Lovey is tucked under kitty in the picture, and kitty is not actually attacking Kate as it may seem.

Annie does expect some degree of reciprocity, however. Here she is "talking" on Aunt Jackie's phone while laying in Kate's bouncy seat. Isn't it crazy that Annie used to actually fit in there?!

New Morning Routine

This only happens for 23 seconds a morning. Both quiet and dry with full bellies.

Being a doctor is a great job. Being a dad is better...

My New Love

All Kate does really is sleep, poop and eat... Kerri is the only one with the tools necessary for the feeding, so I don't do much but change diapers and occupy Anne. She is seriously crazy. Her mouth does not stop (17% intelligible), she runs like mad screaming "I'm running," and she does things like this if you take your eyes off her for 3 seconds.She pushed the little slide under the neighbor's swing set so she could hang like the big girls. Hanging wasn't enough for her so she decided to start kicking and swinging back and forth, then landing back on the slide and starting all over again. It was awesome. At first I was nervous she would go ass over tea cup. Her grip is like a vice. She did it for like 10 minutes with me close by without any sign of slipping. So I stood back and started snapping shots, with my new love... my blackberry device. I watched the Browns game on it last night... live, streaming video. Pretty good camera too. So while I like my daughters, my Blackberry is pretty cool.

Little Monkeys

Matt bought this outfit when I was pregnant with Annie. He went to Old Navy all by himself and picked it out. Annie wore it home from the hospital, and so Kate did, too. They kind of look like boys, but they are adorable nonetheless.

Who is who? You'd probably swear it was the same baby if you didn't know it wasn't :) There are a few little clues, though. It's Annie in the first pic, and Kate in the second. Kate fills the outfit out a bit better :)

Kate!

Katherine Norma Ralls was born on November 4, 2008 at 6:46 p.m. She was 8 lbs, 7 oz and 20.5 inches long. Matt, my mom and all the doctors and nurses laughed when she came out and they saw how big she was :) She's perfect, and looks a lot like her big sister. We're so excited to have our beautiful Kate!

On the scale right after she was born

Right after she was born, she declared her political party allegiance. ;) She looks grumpy because her candidate lost, but it was still a very exciting birthday!

Annie saw this bottle in the room and wanted to feed her sister. She was very sweet today and really seemed to like Kate!

Our family of four!
The best pic of all. I think we have the cutest little girls :)

Let's Bowl Some Balls....And Kerri's Still Pregnant

First, I am indeed still pregnant. Today is my due date. I would very much like this child to be born. That is all I will say about that. For now.

Second, Annie got her first legitimate birthday party invitation a few weeks ago. It was the first party she was invited to not because she was related to the birthday child or because her parents are friends of the birthday child's parents. Our neighbor Sabrina turned 9 on November 1, and she invited Annie to her party at a local bowling alley. We were unsure how she'd do, but it turned out great. Sabrina and her friends had fun carrying her around and eliciting high fives, hit the rocks, kisses, hugs and toddler behavior in general. Annie was surprisingly compliant. She even liked to bowl! We had a small meltdown over the balloons, and we had to leave a little early (naptime), but it was quite a success. I tried to get a pic of Annie and Sabrina, but Annie had had enough by then and it didn't work out. Here she is bowling, though! I think she finished the game with a score of 36.

Daddy helped.

She picked her ball each time based on color. It's a very bowling professional approach.

Go left! Go left!

P.S. Bonus points for anyone who can name the movie I stole the title of this post from. Well, sort of. The actual quote is "Let's bowl some balls. Bowling anyone?"