Thanksgiving!

AND.... it is turkey time!!! Doesn't it look fantastic??? Ruth, my brother's mother-in-law was gracious enough to let us all hang out there and eat to our hearts' content on Thanksgiving day! We had a great time eating, playing games, eating desert, playing games, and just hanging out!

What a beautiful turkey! To bad I completely forgot to have some during the actual meal. :) Oops! I got to the end of my ability to place anything else in my mouth and than realized, I FORGOT to have turkey!

Sean enjoyed playing with some one's digital device. Others of us sat around, cooked, opened the much anticipated sparkling, Welch's grape juice....

What a gorgeous spread. Well... it looked better in person. Sorry about my camera skills.





Here we are playing "forgot-the-name". Sean is supposed to be the human tool with which my brother moves arms, legs, etc. in order to get his team mates to guess: changing a diaper. As one might anticipate from the below picture. Sean was not exactly comfortable with the proceedings and did not quite move correctly.

Above, and to the right is Sean's attempt while blindfolded to draw a kilt. His team guessed it. Hurrah!


Having a good time!

The day after Thanksgiving we went back over to Ren's mother-in-law's house and played more games, ate more, and even played some music together. I played a little violin but had more fun attempting to play the piano accompaniment to some cello repertoire. Ren did an awesome job, especially as he had not played since last Thanksgiving!!! Meghan loved it too. She tried to peer in the "f" holes and asked her Daddy," What's in there?" The next cute remark was her surprise at the size of Daddy's "violin." She was even more amazed at my "baby violin!"

Meghan even willingly shared her beloved Pooh sofa with Charis. When we first got to MI, Meghan was so sweet. I had to laugh. She asked me, during a diaper change, if Charis needed to borrow her "bootie cream" so that Charis would not get a "sore bum." :)

And last but not least a couple more baby pictures!!!

Hope you all everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! May God bless.

Rolling?

I hope all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! Here is one picture that I just fell in love with, and the rest will have to wait until later. We had a lovely time up in MI with my brother and his family! What I was most impressed with, though I did not get to see the action is that Charis rolled to her back twice just prior to this picture for Sean. He was going to get me and let me see, but she rolled again for the second time as soon as he put her back on her tummy! :) Oh well, maybe next time we will get footage, and I will get to see her in action.

She is Growing!

Though Charis does not quite match her cousin Luke in size, I was quite proud of her growth. It is encouraging for a new mom who sometimes worries whether she is sufficiently eating to note that she is growing! I, of course, thought that she was, but it is exciting that the facts validate my own opinions! She is getting to be quite the little woman. Though her smiles are not overly frequent, both Sean and I are able to entice a few from her every day! They are so cute. There are the little smirks and then the wide, open mouth, beaming from ear to ear smiles! How precious!

At birth

~Height: 19 1/2 in
~Weight: 7lbs 6oz (but dropped 5 oz by the following day)
~Head circumference: 12 1/2

At 4 Days

~Height: ?
~Weight: 7lbs 7 oz
~Head circumference: ?

At 1 Month

~Height: 22 inches
~Weight: 10 lbs
~Head circumference: 15

Pictures!

Well, I have been very busy, but I did promise to post pictures and am now doing so. There will be quite a few as we both have been rather camera happy over the last couple of days! :) Enjoy!

I'm so sleepy

Oh so sleepy...

But now that I am awake... It is time to practice my dance moves!!!

Posing and Smiling

Looking Cute!

I love my Daddy and he loves me!

Time for some more sleep! However, sleep time would not be quite so easy if not for the pacifier and blanket. I did call Charis' beloved blanket "miss chick" blanket due to the cute, fuzzy yellow bird in the center, but then discovered that the "chicken" has webbed feet, as one might notice in the second picture from the top (haha). Hmm... so we now call it her fuzzy blanket. If her blanket touches her face allowing her to snuggle against it, she is out in seconds/minutes.

P.S. "Thank you Mrs. Hurley for the blanket!!!" ~Charis

Family Fun!

Well, it is that time again... to post more pictures. Thankfully, these pics
are not just of the baby Charis but also a few of her favorite relatives. :) It was so wonderful to have my brother, Ren, and his family along with Rachel and her family. They overlapped their visits by about 3-4 hrs. which made it that much more enjoyable. For those of you whose siblings live quite a distance away, you know how difficult it is to get even a few of you in the same place at the same time, especially when some like Ren and Patrick have such busy schedules! I would have loved to have them all here at the same time, but my little apartment was bulging at the seams with only one family at a time present, especially as the second bedroom is Sean's study and has quite a few books in it. The only disappointment was that Sean was absent almost the entire time due to some Church business! :( Anyhow, enjoy!

What an adorable chunk!! He's huge compared to his cousin Charis. Who ever thought that 12wks. could make such a difference!!

Let's all sit on Sean-time!!!

These boys are all going to make wonderful daddies some day! You should have seen them all with Charis and then their brother. They were rather tickled that Aunt Katie couldn't even get Luke to quiet down.

Aunt Michelle and Charis


Uncle Ren, Meghan and Charis
P.S. Sorry, Sean and Drew! I had some cute pictures of you and the baby but they erased on accident, and I couldn't get them back in the right places! :(