We welcome our little girl!

I realize this post is a bit long over due. We welcomed our new daughter, Gianna Noel, into this world on Sunday December 23rd at 3:27AM. She was a shocking 7lbs. 13oz. (as our others were significantly smaller: 7lb, and 6lb 8oz), and 19.5 in long. Labor and delivery went very well, and Gianna was perfectly healthy and beautiful! We are so blessed. Life is starting to get back to normal around here, as we all adjust to this new little person in our lives. Dominic is very sweet with her, and loves to hug and kiss her. Stella was at first excited, then indifferent, and now solidly jealous of her. I know in time though, they will be great buddies! It is tough making the adjustment to having a new baby in the house. While I am so incredibly in love with little Gianna, and never want to put her down, I also realized how much I was missing Dominic and Stella, as I have spent this last month trying to learn how to balance my time with my three babies. I think overall, I am finally getting the hang of things. Gianna is mostly a good sleeper during the day, and content while being held or nursed. She also loves her bouncy seat, and the sling (which is actually a mei tai). She will almost always fall asleep in them... at least for now! I am making it a point to try and spend special time with Dominic and Stella while Gianna is sleeping.
The other day, as Peter was driving us all to Mass, I looked in the back of our van, and it suddenly hit me...we have three kids! Wow. Where has the time gone? It was not too long ago that it would have been just the two of us driving together, and now we are a family of five! Life is never easy, but it sure is good.
Gianna is now 6 weeks old. She is gaining weight like a champ. She was spitting up quite a bit, and seemed to be in alot of pain with that, so her doctor prescribed prevacid, a reflux medication, which is supposed to cut down on the amount of acid her stomach produces. I also started cutting dairy out of my diet to see if that would help her, since a dairy intolerance can sometimes be the cause behind a lot of reflux. Some days are better than others, but overall, she seems to be doing better. While she does still spit up, she seems much more comfortable. Night time has been a bit challenging though, because she needs to be upright after she nurses for quite awhile so she doesn't spit up, or have discomfort. Needless to say, we are not getting too much sleep. But we seem to be managing OK. I am just hoping that she grows out of this soon! Gianna is such a joy to have, and we are so proud of her.

Gianna Noel!

I have been finding it difficult to have enough time to sit down and blog recently, but I would like to at least post pictures of our beautiful new baby. A picture is worth a thousand words, anyways. Enjoy!

I can't belive it is almost Christmas!

It is almost Christmas, and despite being 39 weeks pregnant, I feel like I am on top of all the Christmas things I wanted to do! We have had a tree for almost two weeks now, which is VERY on top of things for us! Two weekends ago, Peter, the kids, and I went to a tree farm, where they let you cut down your own tree. We took it home, and after dinner, decorated it while we ate Christmas cookies and popcorn, and watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" movie. We all really enjoyed that day! Since then,I have completed all of my Christmas projects (knitting and jewelry making), and we have pretty much all of the gifts we are planning on giving to people. There are a few things which we are waiting on, since we would like the new baby to be a part of them, but for now, we are all set. I have also decorated our house, and made Christmas cookies with the kids! They really loved using the cookie cutters and sprinkles, about as much as they loved sneaking, literally handfuls of the dough! Part of the reason I feel on top of things this year is that I did not take on too much, being that I am so close to delivering.
Well, that's all for now. Hopefully next time I get around to posting, I will have pictures of the newest little member of our family too!

Almost there...

It is always funny to me how impatient I get at the end of my pregnancies.They always seem to go so fast, until I am about 3 weeks away form my due date, and then it feels like everyday is an eternity! I am currently 38 weeks, so with 2 weeks left, you'd think I would be excited and anticipating, but instead, I feel run down, exhausted, and super anxious. I am very excited to meet my new little baby, and to finally get a chance to see her face and hold her little body. I am also quite tired of being pregnant at this point, and I am very much looking forward to being able to recover and have more energy and motivation to play and spend time with my kids and husband!
The last few months have felt very long, with the kids having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. We introduced "the big-kid bed" and every night when our usually 30 minute bed time routine was turning into 2 hours, I would be furious with myself for coming up with the "grand" idea in the first place! After trying to lay down with the kids until they fell asleep, which never took less than 2 hours, AKA two complete rotations of their lullaby CD, putting up a gate, which Dominic impressively knocked over, and finally installing a lock, which did not deter the kids one bit from making their entire room one big play pen until 10 or 11 at night, we had totaled about 3 solid weeks of very little night time sleep (for any of us), and just about no nap time whatsoever, except when I would drive the kids in the car until they fell asleep. We finally decided to seek the help of others. Our pediatrician recommended putting Stella back in a crib since she is still rather young for a bed. We borrowed a spare pack and play from Peter's sister and used it as a punishment if Dominic were to get out of bed without a good reason once the bed time routine was over. He hated going in the crib, so he quickly began to get the idea.
At first, I was very against the idea of the gate, the lock, and the crib/punishment because I was worried about the kids' feelings in all of this. While I certainly believe that their feelings are extremely important, I also realized that the poor things were suffering from lack of sleep. They were not themselves on a daily basis. They were extremely irritable, and overly exhausted! I could see clearly that they wanted and needed Peter and I to intervene in a drastic way, in order to get them the sleep they needed.
I occasionally like to read parenting books, however, I have not found one that I completely agree with. Some are too firm while others are much too relaxed. Peter and I were trying to evaluate our parenting style and feeling a little confused about how to go about certain things, when we began to realize that God has given us a very good clue about how to relate to our children. He certainly doesn't give us a step by step guide, but if we look at the way He relates to us, we can draw a lot of beautiful conclusions about parenting. God is unconditional love! Although we are limited beings, we as parents are called to love our children unconditionally. This seems pretty obvious. Anyone would agree. But I think that sometimes, we can become confused about what this means exactly. I believe that unconditional love requires me as a mother to always be there for my children and have open arms to them. It means sacrifice. It means being able to give punishments in order to teach my children important lessons. It means always putting their needs first, and trying to discern what is best for them.

Some Pictures of our recent activities...

Stella Stories

One night, Stella woke up with something terrible bothering her. I rocked, walked, held and cuddled her as long as it took for her to calm down. She is very intense, but this was unusual behavior for her. Looking back, I think it may have been a night terror. It was so sad to see her that upset. But eventually, she did clam down, so I could hold her and reassure her that she was ok, and of course, she slept with us the rest of the night. Now, Peter will often be the one to get the kids in the middle of the night, but on this particular night, I was the one who stayed up. The next morning after Peter had gone to work, I asked her,"Stella, did you sleep with mama last night?" She looked at me with a big smile and said, "No. Papa!"
She is such a Papa's girl! It is the cutest thing. And Dominic of course is Peter's greatest fan. He wants, and often tries, to do everything his Papa does. Stella sometimes gets so offended when Peter and Dominic are doing something that does not include her. For example, last weekend, Peter got to bring a Humvee home from work! The kids had a blast! Especially Dominic. When Peter took Dominic out for a ride first, Stella stood at the door crying for him. Then she went and got her coat so she could be all ready for when it was her turn!
Stella was a "dee bug" (lady bug) for Halloween this year. For awhile, when she would see a picture of a lady bug she would look at me questioningly, and pointing to the picture would say, "dat della?"(is that Stella?).
She loves shoes and dressing up in hats and scarves! Also, she has recently discovered that she likes to push her dolls and stuffed animals ("doddies") around in a stroller. However, I had to laugh today when I saw that she had put her favorite white dress shoes in the stroller instead, and was pushing them around!
My mom put nail polish on her toes the other day. She loves looking at her toes now, and every time I tell her how pretty they look she'll remind me, "Nonnie di dat" (Nonnie did that)!
She is such a wonderful little girl. She has such character and is just as cute and pretty as can be! She is also the most snuggly child I have ever known! It doesn't matter where she is, if she feels like snuggling and she's not being held by someone, she'll lay down right then and there, and snuggle with the floor! I just can't get over how sweet she is. I love watching her grow and seeing that adorable personality coming out. She continues to amaze me everyday!

Boy Oh Boy!

After our lovely date, Peter and I went to pick up our kids from my mom's house, where they were having lots of fun playing and hanging out with my mom and brother Johnny. As we were leaving I yelled "good night" to my brother...
Dominic: Good night Johnny.
Nonnie (my mom): Dominic, you should call him Uncle Johnny.
Dominic: Good night Uncle Johnny. Good night Uncle Nonnie.
Nonnie: Oh, but you can call me just plain Nonnie.
Dominic: Good night Just Plain Nonnie!


Dominic: Jeffer (Jennifer), where is Papa?
Me: Wait a second. You have to call me Mama!
Dominic: Well... I'm a big boy, so I can call you Jeffer!


Dominic and Peter love to wrestle, tackle, and basically rough house when Peter comes home from work! It will often start something like this...
Dominic: Papa, I wanna tackle you.
Peter: OK! I'm gonna get you!
(Tackle, roll, wrestle, etc!)
Dominic: Wait a minute, I need to get my hockey stick and tools! (Runs off)
Peter: Uh Oh!
Moral of the story is that Dominic is very enthralled with weapons. He also really likes Spider man, and will sometimes pretend to be him, at which point I will often have to remind him that Spider man does not use weapons!


My Dominic is such a boy and I love it! He is so active, energetic, and full of life! Sometimes, however, I find myself a little confused about what makes little boys tick. I was never into weapons, tackling, wrestling, etc. So it can be a challenge sometimes for me to know how to relate to him in that way. Luckily, Peter is excellent with knowing how to relate to him, and I think Dominic realizes that there are some fun things that he does with only Papa, and some fun things that he does with only Mama.
After Mass on Sunday, Dominic was playing with his cousin (also a total boy!), kicking rocks, running, shouting, throwing sticks, and just having a great time together. As we were getting ready to leave, we found Dominic at the statue of St. Joseph and baby Jesus. He was sweetly holding the baby Jesus statue in his little hands, and cuddling with it! He is such a great combination of strong and gentle. He is just amazing. I love trying to figure out what is going on in that adorable head of his!

Back at home

I was on a women's retreat this weekend. I was kind of dreading the whole thing, as I was not looking forward to leaving my kids and Peter. On the way there, I ran out of gas, on the freeway, in the dark. My sister in law was with me, and she was supposed to do night prayers that night, which was getting closer and closer to not happening, as we sat there waiting for someone to come bring us fuel. It took awhile, but she is great company, and so we were able to laugh and keep things light and under control. We did, in fact, even get there in time for her to do the night prayers. But once I got to my room, I started feeling so bad. I was already very tired, I had not wanted to be there in the first place, I was feeling rather embarrassed about making such a silly mistake, and when I called to let Peter know we had gotten there safely, Dominic got on the phone and asked me to come home! Not a great combination of events for a tired, pregnant mama, who is missing her babies.
Well, as it turned out, the retreat was a very good thing! God called to me, and I responded! I knew, on some level, that taking this retreat would be an excellent thing for me, and for the kids, who got to spend a fun filled weekend with their amazing papa! As a wife, mother, and human being, I have alot of growing to do, and the most important thing I can do for myself and my family is to grow towards God and allow Him to mold me into the wife and mother that He has called me to be.

update

Life around here is beginning to get back to the normal routine, as Peter is now finished with over time, for right now! It is nice to be eating dinner earlier and getting the kids to bed a little earlier too, as I think they really needed it. But most of all, it is just wonderful to have Peter home more. The kids just adore their Papa! They LOVE when he gets home. He plays football, tickle monster, wrestling, shooting, cuddling (mostly for Stella... because cuddling is her favorite thing to do and Dominic cannot usually fit it into his hectic schedule!), and just about anything with them. He is the greatest dad, and I am so happy that my children have him as their papa!
I am going on the CTK womens' retreat this weekend... without the kiddos. I am feeling very sad about it, because I do not like leaving my children. I hardly ever leave them, and I am happiest that way, but I know that this retreat will be good for me, as I could really use some quiet time with God, and I also think that it will be good for the kids to have some one on one time with Peter. Only good can come of this, but I am missing them already!
To finish, I have a quick and cute story about Dominic. Peter was cutting his own hair with the buzzer one morning, as Dominic intently watched. When he was finished, Dominic stood up, and very emphatically said: "Oh Papa! You a boy now!"

My little angels!

labor day weekend pictures

Dominic swimming; Dominic and his Aunt Katie; Stella; Dominic and Papa working together; Dominic and Stella dressed up in paint ball gear; Dominic and Stella with their Aunt Katie; Stella with her Aunt Laura (Yaya)! We had a great Labor Day weekend. As you can see, we spent lots of it with family and at the lake!

summer fun continued

God has certainly had a way of smoothing out the rough patches of life for us with some laughter lately! We have had to use our Triple A emergency towing three times in the span of one month, and while we were finally looking forward to Peter's overtime coming to an end, he just found out that not only will it be extended for another month, but he will have to work even longer hours each day, and Saturdays as well... not to mention that I have only continued getting more and more exhausted as the pregnancy progresses! But we are all healthy and safe! That is of course what matters most!!! Regardless of the difficulties in the past few months, we have been doing some fun summer activities and we have been laughing a lot!
Dominic and I were having some animal crackers one day. He was pretending that the horse- shaped cracker was his pet, and was making it walk around on the table and talk to me. When he dropped it he said, "Oh poor horsey. He sad. He need his papa." I asked, "Where is his papa?" He thought for a moment, then with his head tipped to one side said, "I guess he's in my mouth. I ate him."
Earlier that morning, when Dominic woke up, I heard him over the monitor saying that he was scared. I went to his room, to find him pointing towards Stella's crib, with her in it, happily snoring away. "What are you scared of?" I asked him. I could tell he was searching for the words to describe what he was afraid of. Finally he blurted out,"I gared of Della when she do dat zebra!" Translation: "I'm scared of Stella when she snores!" So apparently, Stella sounds like a zebra when she snores.
We were getting in the car to go home after Mass one morning, when Dominic hops in the driver's seat and pretends to drive. I turned the car on.
Peter: Why did you do that?
Jennifer: Why not? It's not like he can reach the pedals.
Dominic: Yes I can! (as he begins to slide down the seat in the direction of the pedals)
We went to the Detroit zoo last weekend! It was a fun trip. One of our highlights was when we were at the grizzly bears viewing area. Stella is fascinated with flowers, and so, much of her time was spent trying the pick every pretty flower that we passed by. At the grizzly bears, Peter put Stella down for a second (that is literally all it took), and when I asked where she was, we turned around to find that she had climbed underneath the wooden fence that separated the viewers from the moat (which is the only thing that keeps those bears at a safe distance), in order to pick a flower. It is quite a sight to see your one and a half year old picking a flower on the other side of the grizzly bear fence at the zoo!
I will post some pictures of the kids, but that might take up another whole post, so bare with me!

Labor day weekend

It is already Wednesday, and it feels like the week has just started! I guess that's because of the long weekend we just had due to Labor day. The weekend started off kind of slow. Friday night after dinner, Peter and the kids and I went to pick up a new riding lawn mower, to replace our old one that broke. Dominic was totally excited about that because he LOVES tractors! And better yet, this new one was blue... one of his favorite colors. Saturday we really just took it easy. Peter and Dominic mowed the lawn (Dominic sits on Peter's lap) in the morning after we ate a nice breakfast. This is their Saturday morning routine, and something that Dominic always looks forward to! Stella and I stayed in while I did some quick cleaning up of the house, then we got ready and went outside to be with the guys, take a little walk, and play. After lunch, Dominic "helped" Peter put in a sink in the laundry room. Poor Stella had a really hard time going down for a nap. Even though she desperately needed one, I think she is/was in the midst of teething. She has also just begun exhibiting some symptoms of a cold today, so that might have been bothering her too. Overall, it was a quiet and rather boring day, which in hindsight was great, because the next two days were very full. On Sunday, we went to 11:15am Mass, then directly to my dad's house for my step mom's family reunion. My dad took Peter, the kids, me, my brother Johnny, and a few others out on the boat, for a fun boat ride! After lots of playing and eating an early dinner, we headed off to my Nana's house, to celebrate mine, my mom's and my uncle's birthdays. This side of my family tends to do things on the later side, and so we didn't end up leaving until 10pm. It takes us over an hour to get home, and so, needless to say, we were all exhausted! I felt so bad about keeping the kids out so late, but it was a very rare occurrence, and they actually did surprisingly well with everything going on. They really had a great time! Monday, was Labor day, and so Peter did not have to go into work! We went over to my dad's house again, to swim at the beach there. The kids had the best time! My favorite thing is seeing my kids having fun and enjoying life! After building a huge reservoir and filling it up with water for the kids, Peter got to fish with my dad and siblings, while Dominic, Stella, my sister, and I made sand castles. After Kate (my sister) decided she'd like to join the guys for fishing, Dominic's interest shifted to the little playground that was near the beach. He went for a few rides down the slide, then headed back to the water to play with Grandma for a bit. Stella, hates the sand! She did NOT want to touch it. But I managed to get her interested in the shovels and buckets, which worked for awhile, until she noticed that her hands were covered in wet, clinging sand! Shortly after pizza with the family, we started on our way home, which is usually only a 45 minute drive, but this time took us an hour and a half, because we had to stop a couple of times to calm our overly exhausted children! We did finally arrive home, with the kids asleep, and Peter and I ended our night by watching a movie together. Tuesday was my birthday. I had a great day! Peter surprised me by coming home a bit early with flowers and chocolates. He grilled a wonderful dinner, and my mom and brother came over to eat with us. The kids had a blast playing outside in their wading pool, singing happy birthday and blowing out candles, and getting to spend time with their Nonnie (my mom) and uncle Johnny, whom they just love to pieces! And to close, I just have to mention a very cute thing about Stella. It is not always easy to understand all of her words, as most are very unclear, and mixed in with lots of babble, but I could clearly hear her version of the happy birthday song... "Happy to Stella, Happy to Stella!"

Summer Fun!

Stella at the park

Stella having fun in the pool

Dominic and Stella in their pool

Dominic on Papa's tractor

Dominic pulling Stella in a trailer with his tractor

Dominic having fun at a friend's house

Dominic and Stella with friends Norah and Kitty

Dominic having lunch after swimming