Which is Which?

I couldn't wait until Courtney could fit into this little sleeper and be able to take picture of her and compare her to Maggie. Everyone is always asking me if Courtney looks like Maggie did. I honestly wasn't sure. Until I did this little experiment.....

Can you tell which is which?

Is She Really Four??

Our little girl turned four this week. It was really strange, thinking back on the last 4 years. Four years ago, we were living in California, I was working at on OBGYN office and Mark was still in sheet metal construction. Maggie was born and soon after, we were on our way back to Washington. Now, Mark is working for the DOT, I'm teaching 5th grade, we have a 6 month old daughter and our "little girl," Maggie is in preschool. Maggie is such a great little girl! She is so bright and articulate, and has the best sense of humor. She loves to tease Mark, and is a great big sister. We are truly blessed that God chose us to be her parents and look forward to continuing to watch her grow.

One of Maggie's favorite gifts was from Grandma and Grandpa. It's a Princess tent and sleeping bag set. She was so excited that she had to have it set up and she really wanted to use it in bed that night. In the picture above, she is posing for a picture for Grandma. Once she fell asleep, I took the picture that you see below...

Can You Believe It??

This year, there were 7 of us ladies at church that were pregnant. We were all surprised and shocked as each one of us found out that we were all carrying girls.

Trying to get 7 babies, from 3 to 9 months old, to "sit" on the couch without falling over was pretty comical.

From L-R, Livia, Rynn, Rene, Courtney, Ally, Lylah and Grace

Courtney wasn't quite sure what to make of all of this.

Halloween

Courtney was a little flower for Halloween. I found this little sleeper at Wal-Mart and couldn't pass it up. Knowing that she was going to be in the carseat or the Bjorn all night, I didn't think I needed to spend a ton of money on a costume for her.

This year, Maggie wanted to be a pretty pink fairy for Halloween. I was a little nervous, because, as a child, I was always scary things and wasn't quite sure how to do the whole "pretty" thing for her.  As I started picking up things for her costume, I was more and more excited about it. I think I had as much fun "decorating" her as she did being the fairy. (And, yes, those are tattoos on her face.... )

Bath Time to School Time

Maggie loves her little sister.

Courtney at 3 months.

Maggie, on her first day at school.

Where Did I Leave Off....?

For Father's Day, Mark and his brother Matt took Maggie and Matt's son, Camden, to a Mariner's Game. Afterwards, they got to run the bases. Mark and Matt felt that the kids needed some adult supervision and snuck their way into the line of kids, as well. :)

Of course, Maggie enjoyed all aspects of the game, from cheering on the team and eating lots of tasty snacks.

Fourth of July

Mark's parents came over on the Fourth of July and we had a nice BBQ on our patio. Grandpa Mike bought this cool water toy that we got to enjoy on our nice grass. Maggie didn't want to try it at first and convinced Mark to crawl through it with her. Maggie loves her little sister a lot and is always asking me if Courtney can sit next to her. This is about the time that Maggie picked up her new "smile" that she has for the camera.

Photo Up-Chuck....I Mean Up-Load....

Okay, so I was getting a bit razzed by Tyffany tonight, so here are some pictures from the last 5.9 months.... :)

Shortly after Courtney was born, it was time for some Maggie and Mommy time. I took Maggie to Monkey-Dooz for a haircut and a manicure. Maggie was very excited to have her nails done, and it was fun to do something special with her.

We took Maggie and Courtney to the WestFest at the end of May. It was way too hot for us all to be outside, but Maggie liked riding the pony, so we stayed for about an hour.

Here is a picture of Courtney when she was just a month old. She is definitely too cute!!

Over a couple of weekends in June, Mark put in this great patio in our backyard. It was a great place over the summer to sit in the shade and have some bbq's with family.

Matt and Tara came over with Camden and Shelby in June and we had some family pictures taken. It is so nice to have 3 Lee men with some fancy cameras that can take great pictures!!

Okay, so this was a bit staged by us, parents, but still, it turned out pretty darn cute!!

I really liked how nice this picture turned out. Maybe we'll use it for Christmas cards....Although Courtney has gotten considerably bigger since this was taken!

Okay, so this isn't all of my pictures that I need to catch up on, and we took some great pictures of Maggie last night (for Halloween) and we had a baby-fest photo-op tonight so I am determined to get them up ASAP. So...stay tuned! :)

Sisters

From the beginning, Maggie has been so excited to be a big sister. One morning, just a week before Courtney was due, Maggie woke up and the first thing she asked was, "Mommy, when will my baby sister be here?"

So, I guess we shouldn't have been surprised when Maggie saw Courtney for the first time. She was so gentle with her and so excited to see her. She seems to have a very natural mommy-instinct. I just can't put into words just how blessed we feel that she is such a wonderful big sister! The only way to help "explain" it is to put up this picture and let you see for yourselves.

Courtney Marie

After 9 months of waiting, Courtney Marie made her appearance on the day she was due, May 3rd, 2009.

I woke up on May 2 feeling some light contractions. Of course, Maggie was wide awake, and since Mark had been working a lot of overtime and doing a lot on the Honey-Do list, I thought I should let him sleep a bit longer.

Maggie and I went and played in her room. We prepared a Royal Picnic for breakfast and then woke up Mark. I wish we had taken some pictures, because we had a great time on the living room floor (on our picnic blankets, of course) eating cantalope and cut-up Costco muffins. Maggie took a few etiquette lessons, you know, because she was supposed to be a princess and princesses don't talk with their mouths full or grab handfuls of cantalope at a time. :) While we are sitting on the floor, my contractions got a little stronger and closer together.

Throughout the morning, I had contractions from anywhere between 4 minutes to about 20 minutes apart. Since they weren't anything regular, we decided we would get Maggie packed, just in case, for Grandma's house and head into town. We went to Big 5 and then went to Target and did some wandering for an hour or so. By now, my contractions were regularly about 15 minutes apart, so we headed to Mark's parents house to drop off Maggie. We stopped and picked up lunch for all of us and by the time we got to his parent's house, my contractions had seemed to stop. At one point, I went 45 minutes without a single contraction. I took a little nap at Grandma and Grandpa's house and when I woke up, Mark suggested we take Maggie for a walk. Our friends, Jill and Marcus, live near Mike and Lonnita's, so we walked over there for a little visit. By the time we got back home, it was close to 5:00 and my contractions had picked back up. We decided we should probably go to the hospital, just to get checked, before we headed back home.

When we got to the hospital, they checked me and I was only dialated to 3 cm. The nurse had us walk the halls for an hour, to see if anything changed. I don't think any of us were expecting that I would have progressed to 4cm during that hour, but that's what happened. At 7:00 pm, they called the doctor and decided to keep us there. That's when the fun really started!

My contractions got stronger and stronger and closer together. Now, mind you, I had really wanted to try to have another epidural-free child birth, but at this point, the pain was getting pretty bad. The nurses gave me some Stadol (?) to take some pain away and let me sleep a bit. I know I didn't last long and quickly passed out. At midnight, I woke to a sharp pain and a "pop" and knew that my water had just broken. The nurses quickly came in to check me, and I was still at just 6 cm. A half hour later, I was begging for an epidural and the anesthesiologist was there and had me set-up by 12:48am. (How do I remember that...I have no idea!!)

Okay, so the guy just set-up the epidural, and 48 minutes earlier I was only at 6cm. However, I knew this baby was coming and I started telling the nurses I needed to push. I don't think they really believed me, and they gave me this, "Okay...okay...we'll check you..." kind of response. They checked and were surprised to find that we needed a doctor ASAP! Once the kind doctor got there (thank goodness he lives very close to the hospital!) I began to push. Three pushes later, at 1:15 am, Courtney Marie joined our world.

The Phone Call

Well, yesterday I got the call I have been dreading for a few weeks. I knew it was coming, but still wasn't quite prepared. My mom called and told me the results of my dad's last doctor's appointment. Cancer of the Bladder. With this diagnosis, there is good and bad. The good part is that all of his scans show that the cancer is contained in his bladder, and actually can come out in urine. So, they are very optimistic that once the tumor is removed, the cancer will be as well. The bad part is that Bladder Cancer frequently reoccurs. Which means that my dad will be subjected to some really fun testing every 3 to 6 months, probably forever. Apparently, he is thankful that Polariod Cameras aren't used as the doctor's camera of choice.
Now my one concern (and I'm hoping my parents don't mind that I'm talking about this in "public") is that both of my parents smoke. From what I have seen regarding Cancer of the Bladder, smoking is a major contributor to this particular type of cancer, and can interfere with cancer treatments that a patient is given. So, if someone has smoked for as long as my parents have, and you are dealt with this kind of diagnosis, how is it possible to quit smoking? Now, I am not judging them because they smoke, those that know me well, know I have done far worse things than smoke a cigarrette. Besides, it's not my job to judge. It's my job to love them, pray for them, and support them in whatever way I can. I just worry that my Dad will go through whatever treatments he needs to to get rid of this cancer, only to have it continue to return because of smoking.
Well, I'll keep you posted whenever I hear anything more and would appreciate any prayers.

It's a Girl!!!

We finally had the opportunity to find out the gender of our baby on Tuesday afternoon. After much searching, the technician finally found 3 lines, which apparently means that we are having a girl! I am a little apprehensive about the idea of having 2 teenage girls in my house in about 13 years....a little scary. Mark has decided that he will need to have a shop built. I told him to make sure I have my own padded room next to the shop. :) We are thankful for the blessing of another daughter and look forward to the next chapter of our lives as our family grows.

LegoLand

While we were in San Diego, we were able to go to LegoLand for the first time. I think it had just opened when we still lived there, but haven't had the chance to go. What a great place for little kids! Just about everywhere we went, there were legos for Maggie to play with. Which, I guess since we were in LegoLand, shouldn't surprise me, but still. They were in places that were pretty smart. Like, when we were standing in lines, there would be a line for adults to stand in and then there would be a central play area with legos for the kids to have something to do and everyone could keep their sanity.

They also had a fun water play area that Maggie could have stayed in all day. Did I mention that just about every day we were there, the weather was in the 60's?? This particular day, I think was about 68! Gotta love California Christmases!

Super-Charged!

My really cool dad got us some great seats to the Charger/Denver game. He picked them up for us a couple of months ago, when the game was just a regular game. We were pretty excited to go being that we don't get the chance to go very often. Then, the team actually started to win and Denver started to lose and this ordinary, end of the season game turned into a Division Play-Off game....and WE HAD TICKETS!! Awesome! Needless to say, we were VERY excited to go. When we got to San Diego, my dad told us that he wouldn't be offended if we wanted to put the seats on Craigslist or Ebay and make some money...the seats were going for about $250 a seat. After thinking about it for about a minute or two, we decided we'd rather go to the game. How often would we get a chance to go to a game like this?

After waiting an hour and a half to just get into the parking lot, we headed in to Qualcomm Stadium. We met my brother and his wife, Liz at our seats and had a great time! We had really good seats and got to see some terrific plays in the end-zone and of course, the Chargers stomped the Broncos so badly that their coach was fired just a couple of days later.

Now, if only they can keep the momentum going...maybe we'll get to see them in the SuperBowl!

Christmas in San Diego

After spending our first day in San Diego getting last-minute presents, we quickly got dressed to head to the Whelan Family Christmas Eve party. As long as I can remember, my dad's brothers and sisters have gotten together every Christmas Eve. I was glad that we had the chance to go this year. We haven't been since Maggie was 6 weeks old. Every year, our family seems to grow just a little bit more. This year, there was a new addition and 2 fiancees to meet. I think my Aunt Gee counted 22 great nieces and nephews. It's always fun to see all my aunts, uncles and cousins. A little overwhelming, but a lot of fun.

My mom bought Maggie this Christmas dress and a matching one for my niece, Kayla. Maggie didn't quite like the idea of wearing a dress (she kept asking me where mine was :) ). She finally gave in when she realized that the slip underneath made a neat swishing sound when she twirled. Maybe she might give more dresses a try.

This is a picture of Maggie with my niece Kayla, and my nephews Blake and Cameron. It's hard to believe that Cameron was younger than Maggie when he was our ring bearer 11 and a half years ago.

My mom and dad bought Maggie this cool LeapFrog ClickStart computer sysetm for Christmas. She thinks she is such a big girl sitting her at her "computer desk" playing computer games all by herself.

Of course, a trip to San Diego wouldn't be complete without going to Balboa Park to ride the carousel and the train. This time, even the butterflies and airplanes were open and she got to ride those for the first time.

Road Trip Entertainment

This is a video of Maggie (and Mark and I singing back-up vocals) singing to Laurie Berkner in the car. How could I not record it?! (Thanks, Matt for helping me with the video up-load!)

Road Trip!

So, we found out that our flight had been cancelled at about 11:00 am (our flight was scheduled for 4:45pm). We packed up our stuff into the car, made a few trips to stock up on snacks and tire chains and hit the road. We got to Portland (which had been basically shut down due to snow-fall) by about 6 or 7. Because they had had so much snow, the roads were pretty bad. Not only did they have compact snow on the road, but chains had been required all day, so they were very rutted and BUMPY!! This meant that in order to get through without giving us all whiplash, we had to drive not more than 15 miles per hour. Yikes. But, we weren't going to let that stop us! No way...keep on going. :) We continued on until we got to the town of Roseburg, which was about 2 hours north of the CA/OR border. We found a Best Western and CRASHED!
We figured that Maggie would get up at her normal 7:00 am and we would get up then and grab a bite to eat and hit the road. Maggie never sleeps in, even if she is up past her normal bedtime. Not this time. Our room was so nice and dark, that I woke up, rolled over looked at the clock and saw 8:00 on the clock. Whoops! Maggie was still OUT! So, that was how our day started. A bit slow. We got dressed, went down to the awesome FREE breakfast, checked the roads on the FREE Wi-Fi, and headed out by 9:30. A little later than what we hoped, but didn't let it phase us.
We drove on. And on. And on....I think you get the idea. We didn't even get to Sacramento until about 5:30pm or so. If you know anything about the state of California and where San Diego is compared to Sacramento....then you understand the drive we still had ahead of us. We really wanted to get there...nothing was going to get in our way. We pressed on and drove into my parents driveway in Carlsbad on Christmas Eve at about 3:30 in the morning, just as my dad was getting up to go to work. We were exhausted! Mark figured that we had spent about 18 hours in the car, just that day alone.
We praise God that we made it successfully, without any car troubles and with a 3-year old who travelled like a pro. We couldn't have made it without the prayers of family and friends...and a laptop that plays movies and an iPod loaded with Wiggles and Laurie Berkner.

Change Of Plans....

The Saturday before Christmas, Mark and I packed up the Yukon and headed over to spend a few days before our flight was "scheduled" to leave on the 22nd. We had a great time visiting and seeing how much Camden and Shelby have grown.

This is what we were driving into on Saturday morning....not looking like good travel weather.

Here, the kiddos are making grocery lists. (There was so much snow, we couldn't even get out to get T.P.!!)

Okay, so this isn't the most flattering photo of us, but I thought the boys would appreciate this picture that shows both Tara and I as the computer geeks we are. However, we are being crafty here. We are practicing our digital scrapbooking skills.

Here, Aunt Tara is reading the hilarious book, Olivia, to Camden and Maggie. I couldn't believe how intently they listened!

Here is Maggie in the snow, the morning that we were to fly out of Seattle.

Apparently, Seat-Tac International is not exactly prepared for this much snow-fall, and ran out of de-icer. Our plane would not be leaving on this day. We couldn't even get a new flight until the Saturday or Sunday after Christmas. Bummer. Well, let's just jump in the car and drive! It's only 1500 miles! Can you say Road Trip?