thanksgiving 2014

we had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday with plenty of blessings to be thankful for aaaaaand delicious food.

my mom sure does love tess. she shoveled down her meal so she could hold her favorite granddaughter. :)

blurry, but i love how happy they all look. i am very grateful we live near the gees. they are always up for a good time.

the seahawks played on thanksgiving which kind of bummed me out because it interrupted our family day (we usually play games and go out to a movie). so i made sure tagg and sully had little projects to do during the game. this was tagg's turkey. kind of derpy but super cute.

megan made turkey sugar cookies so the boys could decorate them. sully was so proud.

i came upstairs to start cleaning and found these two hooligans wheezing the redi-whip.

the reason for this season? left overs.

tess

this little girl is a month old now and we love her so much! she went in for her one month check up and had gained 26 ounces in 20 days. for being a month premature she has done so well and we feel very blessed. look at those cheeks!

so serious. :) when she was first born i thought she looked exactly like sully but in the past week or so i think she is looking more like tagg. either way, i want to eat her up. i looooooove my tess.

halloween

it has been a crazy past few weeks but luckily we were still able to fit in some of our favorite halloween traditions. i was very excited to decorate my mantle for the first halloween in this house. 

little did we know that only about 48 hours after going to the haunted house with megan and alex my water would break. maybe thats what did it! sorry, tess. 

i had made and mailed out the donut party invitations a week before tess surprised us. oops. 

it was a hard decision, :) but in the end i just couldnt host a full blown donut party this year. (it would have been only 7 days after having tess) but i had all the supplies and still wanted to eat a donut, so my mom fried a few up and we had a mini party. 

mini party. sully loves himself in this shot.

the five of us!

halloweeeeeeeen! i cannot tell you how obsessed i was with my harry potter and draco malfoy. 

also, with this little pumpkin. i found this pumpkin costume at a second hand store when sully was a baby and i freaking love it. i would have 10 babies just to put them all in this.

sully is such a sweet brother to tess.

hedwig, naturally.

i honestly dont know how we will top this next year. i could stare at this picture all day long. 

on halloween night we went over to my parents' house to trick or treat around their neighborhood. they boys had fun doing that but mostly wanted to get back to pass out candy to other kids. 

my favorite wizards.

my favorite humans. happy halloween!

INTRODUCING

tess harper smith. she surprised us and came one month early. little nut. 

i was quite nervous when my water broke at 5am on october 20th (a. because i wasnt due for another month and b. because i was still on blood thinners [i was on blood thinners because after my three miscarriages, it was the only thing that helped me keep a baby. i was scheduled to go off of them closer to my due date]) but craig was one cool cat. im very lucky to have him balance out my neuroses.

but as soon as we arrived at the hospital my doctor assured me everything would be ok. the only hitch would be that i would have to have to go under while they performed a c-section to deliver the baby. i didnt care how the baby was delivered at that point, i just wanted us both to be healthy, safe and most of all i couldnt wait to find out the gender! aaaaaaaand one hour after going under, i came to and met my NEW LITTLE BABY GIRL. 5 pounds, 13 ounces and 19.5 inches long. 

first moment with my baby.

happy humans.

another little fun surprise that day? jocelyn came up from camas to meet tess.

the next morning, craig and i spent more quality time with our new little nugget. (we were blessed to have both sets of parents help with tagg and sully while we were in the hospital)

snuggle time. cant explain how much i loved that little pouf the nurses put on tess' hat.

always love the little white board. its where you get to see your baby's name written down for the first time for all to see!

she is such a good little girl.

that night, my parents brought tagg and sully to meet tess for the first time. i love their faces.

first shot of all five of us.

my parents are SO ecstatic to have a granddaughter!

craig's parents are pretty happy too. :)

our last morning in the hospital we swaddled tess up and took a few pictures.

i honestly couldnt be happier that i have a little girl now. i still cant believe it.

tagg and sully are such sweet brothers. cautious and curious. :) 

because tess was a month early she did have to lay on a light bed for the first week. i felt very lucky that we were able to do it at home instead of at the hospital. she loved her little light bed. 

despite being a month early, she is quite the champ. she is eating and sleeping well and loves to snuggle. her faaaaavorite thing to do is stretch. she loves a good stretch. we love her so much already and feel blessed to have her join our family!