Happy St. Patty's Day

The Wennerstroms LOVE St. Patty's Day..even if we aren't Irish.  We're all Irish on St. Patrick's Day, right?  And we gave one of our kids an Irish name so we could be included!  :)

 

2 weekends ago, we headed to the Elmhurst parade.  It's always such a fun day, even if it was a little cold this year.  Thankfully, most of the time we were inside at the Glure's home. We brought the kids with us for the parade part, then we brought them home to have a sleepover with Nana and Papa (thank you so much Nana and Papa) while we went back for the adult portion of the evening.

 

Here are few pictures of the day:

 

Daddy of the year!  Libby was the warmest person at the parade...and thanks Patrick for sharing your super cute hat!!!!

Daddy and his 3 girls.  Behind them were the bagpipes...we made some "buddies"!!!!  The girls were decked out in green, but their jackets covered it up.  It's hard to believe at the same parade a year ago, they were in short sleeve shirts...and we didn't even know about Miss Libby yet!!!!  What a difference a year makes!

Not a great family picture, but proof we were all there!  :)  In the background you can see cutie Patrick enjoying his 1st St. Patrick's Day parade.  His wagon also doubled as a cooler holder, so he was super popular at the parade!  :)

Caitlin made my heart melt.  She has always been in love with Irish dancers...and we knew she had to go to the parade to check it out.  She was so excited and waved at the dancers the whole time.  Then, they stopped right in front of her and danced..and she started dancing along with them.  It was so adorable.  I have spoken with one dance company about her starting lessons this summer..she will be in heaven.  I'm debating on waiting a year because next year she can do our park district dance class with the recital and I feel that every kid should do it one year...and then maybe start Irish dancing.  We'll see....either way, she was loving the dancers!!!

 

The girls both had St. Patrick Day celebrations at school.  They were happy to pose for a picture for me! 

Caitlin always striking a pose!

Abigail as sweet as ever.

 

Libby also wore her cute St. Patrick's Day sleeper, but I couldn't find a good picture.  But couldn't do a post without this sweet baby: 

Melts.  My.  Heart!  Love this little girl!

 

Hope your St. Patrick's Day was full of good luck and green beer!  :)

 

Leigh is here!!!

 

Leigh Gracen Blandford is here!!!

 

She was born today at 12:33pm, weighing 6lbs 3oz.  She is beautiful and perfect...and very well behaved!  :) 

 

Jules is doing good!  She was pretty sick from all the meds after her c-section...but hopefully she starts to feel better soon!  She was a trooper though with 10 people in her room!!! 

 

When I got to Leigh's room, she was already busy cuddling with both her Nana and Papas, her big sister Lucy (and her daddy of course), Aunt Katie and Vern, and Uncle Rob.  But not to worry...I got my hands on her right away!  All we were missing were Leigh's Aunt Jill and Uncle Jake, but they will be here soon to meet her all the way from Colorado...and Aunt Jill and Aunt Beth talked on facebook and are all thinking about Leigh!  :)

 

Leigh happens to share her 1st name with Aunt Katie (Kathryn Leigh).  And her middle name is in honor of Joe's sweet, sweet Grandma Grace.  What a perfect name for a perfect girl!

 

Lucy seemed to be handling all the excitement with ease.  Maybe it was her overdose of McDonalds from Nana and Papa :)  but she seemed very happy!  She was cuddling with Leigh and kept resting her head on Leigh's head.  Very cute!!!!

 

I hope Jules and Joe get as much rest as possible the next few days in the hospital so they are refreshed to go home and begin their new life as a family of 4!!!

 

Congrats Jules, Joe, and Lucy!  Leigh is perfect!  And welcome to our CRAZY family, Leigh.  Get ready...we're loud and crazy, but you will ALWAYS be loved in our family!!!!

 

Lucy giving Leigh a hug.

Kisses from mommy!  Nothing better in life.

Proud Aunt and Uncle!!!!

Such a little peanut!!!!  She's in my hands, so small!!!

Aunt Katie and Vern.  They brought Leigh a big stuffed animal..and Vern carried it all through law school today!   :)

My beautiful niece!

 

More pictures to come soon...especially a picture of the family of 4!!!

 

Welcome to the world, Leigh Gracen!  We LOVE you!!!!

Libby is 3 Months

Well, she may have turned 3 months 2 weeks ago, but the weeks are just flying by with her! 

 

* She continues to grow..and grow..and grow!  She's a big 'ole baby!!!!  I'm sure in normal baby world, she's just average. I'm guessing she's around 12lbs or so.   But being that our 1st 2 kids were so small, she seems big.  For example, she's 3 months old and already wearing 3-6 month clothes..and even some 6 month clothes.  CRAZY!  Abigail was still in 0-3 month clothes in the summer!  So hand-me-downs may not work for Miss Libby this summer!  She's still in size 1 diapers, but we probably aren't too far from moving to size 2.

 

*I'm very proud to say she still isn't on formula.  I've been able to feed her and pump enough when I'm working to keep going...and we haven't even had to use any of our frozen supply yet!  Unforunately, our deep freezer blew a fuse and we didn't know so we lost almost 50 bags of frozen milk.  That was a ROUGH day...but we still have some frozen milk..and we are already 3 months in so I'm pretty happy!  My goal is to get to 6 months without formula..and then every dy after that will be a bonus...but 3 months was my inital goal so I'm happy!

 

*She is a happy, go-with-the-flow baby.  She definitely has her rough periods, especially from 5-7 in the evening.  But for the most part, especially during the day, she's so happy.  She has the cutest smile!  Abigail and Caitlin LOVE to make her smile!

 

*She speaks Polish!  Okay, that's a stretch, but Miss Bella (where she goes when mommy works...I can't call her a babysitter because she's wonderful and so much more...we call her the girls' Polish mama) speaks Polish around her and Libby smiles when Miss Bella speaks Polish to her.  It's adorable!!!  Apparently there is a Polish baby channel at her house and Libby stares at it if it's on!  The girls even sang Happy Birthday to me in Polish for my birthday, it's pretty cool! I'm gonna have to get Auntie Nay Nay to help translate for me soon, just like she did in high school when the cleaning ladies would talk when we came home from lunch and we learned they started swearing in Polish we were home because they had to clean...whole 'nother story!  :)

 

*She coos and it's adorable.  Caitlin never coo-ed and we don't really remember Abigail doing it, so this is definitely new to us and we can't get enough of it!  Last night she was coo-ing at dinner and we started video recording it, and it sounded like she said "Yeah" when Abigail talked to her....so cute!

 

*She goes to bed around 6:30pm and gets up at 2:30am for one feeding and then sleeps again till about 5:30-6:30 for one more feeding.  However, the last 2 nights, she slept from 6:30pm-5:30am, so we may be moving towards sleeping through the night.  I have very mixed feelings on that.  While sleeping is nice, I really really cherish our 2:30 time together and will be very sad when it's over.

 

I am a little behind on all things Libby.  I have to pick a christening date...I'm thinking in June when school's over!  And, we FINALLY ordered her birth announcements!  They haven't arrived yet and if I don't get them out by next week, they are going to make no sense (I'll post them here after they go out...or next weekend if they are late! (;  ).  So, to end Libby's 3 month blog post, here are some of the pictures I considered for her birth announcement that didn't make the cut!  Here's our Libs:

 

Medie.val Times

Yesterday we celebrated 2 very special birthdays.  First, we celebrated Patrick's 1st Birthday!  I can't believe he's already a year old.  He is such a cutie!!!!  He is the most chill, go-with-the-flow kid!  He looked adorable on his birthday and we had a great time celebrating with him!!!!

 

We also celebrated Rosie's 3rd Birthday!  I can not believe what a beautiful, spunky, hilarious little girl she is turning into!  The girls absolutely love to be with Rosie!  Rosie's birthday was at the same time as Patrick's birthday, so Rob stayed with Libby at Patrick's party (that's his Godson) and I took the older girls to Rosie's party!

 

Rosie had her birthday at the "castle"...Medie.val Times.  It's hard to believe that I grew up in Schaum.burg and yet I have never been there.  Since it was in a castle, it was a princess party!!!!

 

We had the BEST time at Medie.val Times.  I had no idea what to expect, but we had a really, really great time!!!!  The girls loved eating the food with their fingers.  Their favorite part was the soup with no spoon.  They also got lemonade since apparently there wasn't milk back then...and that was a big treat for them. 

 

The loved the show part.  Auntie Lia (always thinking) had bought them light up wands (and swords for the boys).  They spent the first part of the night using them as a magical wand...and later began using them as swords!

 

We hope both Patrick and Rosie had a very special birthday.  We love them both to pieces!!!!

 

The princesses

The princesses and knights (minus a sad Luke)

Ahhh..sir Luke makes an appearance, against his wishes! :)

I am hoping to get Caitlin into a summer camp with Rosie and Luke this summer...they love being together and would have so much fun together!

The Hackney Clan

The birthday girl and her family.  Thanks again guys for the fun night!

My 2 princesses!  Go Yellow!!!!

The show began with a magical horse...and had the girls hooked!

Soup, the favorite part

More soup...apparently if I let my kids drink soup they would be happier!

The show

Our princess dreaming of knights and jousts.

Snow Day

Well, I have no idea why, but for a few weeks my computer wouldn't let me download pictures...and then I tried today and it worked with no problem.  So...I have some catching up to do...

 

I need to update about Valentine's Day and Libby turning 3 months old and all the other fun happenings.....

 

A few weeks ago we finally got the big snow we have been waiting for all winter.  Rob took the girls out sledding (we are lucky that the side of our yard is hill so they can sled in our yard..and let me tell you, it's not too shabby of a hill because I took the girls sledding this week and I think I was on it more than the girls...and we did the triple man sled with 3 of us stacked on top of each other) while Libby and I did my favorite duty..hot chocolate duty.

 

Sledding and snow pictures are always one of my favorites!!!!!

 

 

LOTS more to come....

Libby 2.5 months

This little girl is getting so big!!!



I am having major technical issues and can't put pictures on my blog....but when I figure it out, I'll be back!!!!

All Our Important Guys

First, we want to wish my Dad a VERY HAPPY Birthday!!!  We were able to all get together to celebrate the big day this weekend!  While it appears that with each kid we add to our family, we also add a little more chaos to our dinners....we wouldn't have it any other way!  And Rob and my Dad ended the evening with a cigar and beer in the hot tub...that's a great way to celebrate!   Happy Birthday, Dad!  We hope you had a great day!



A few weeks ago was Dad's night at school.  My girls have the BEST dad because instead of bringing them both at the same time like the other dads with 2 kids, Rob took Caitlin for her hour, and then drove home and switched kids and took Abigail for her hour.  Both girls had a great time with their special Daddy time. They made him a tie (which he "wore" to work the next day..and even sent the girls pictures so they could see him wearing them at work), took pictures and made him a frame, and had ice cream.


Abigail's last Dad's Night at Preschool


Caitlin's first Dad's Night at Preschool


A few weeks ago, Papa came over to watch the Hawks with Rob.  And he even brought Libby her own Hawks gear...so we had to get a picture!!!  Go Hawks!

Lib's 1st Hawks Jersey