Sage and her sisters

Sage's older sisters are pretty fond of her.  There's no recent picture of Lise and Sage because I'm always too busy making sure the hugs don't smother the baby to take a picture.  But here are a couple of the oldest and youngest together:

And Sage's arrival has also influenced the play of the older girls.  Babies were always a fun game, but now they're even more popular.  And feeding them is much more realistic... well, except that Lise said the milk comes out her belly button!

Sage recently

Sage has been more awake in the last couple of days; during the days she's getting into a pretty good pattern of eating, looking around for ~20-40 min, then wanting to sleep again.  She is experiencing her first cold right now, courtesy of the big sisters, but doesn't complain much.  I don't want to jinx us by saying this but at this point she seems to be even more laid back than Claire was as a baby.  Our fingers are crossed that that continues!

(sleep smiling, though she is close to really smiling a lot - she gave us one a few days ago!)

-Will

Pre-holiday weekend

We had a good weekend before the holiday weekend.  It included a visit from a high school friend of mine and her family, baking Christmas cookies, and just relaxing.

There was quite a bit of giggling in our house with 5 girls under five-years-old, and Sage didn't even contribute!

Cookie cutting and decorating was a big hit, but cookie eating later was even more fun of course!

(what? no Sage pictures??? Stay tuned for another post tomorrow...)

First Baths

Sage had her first real bath a while ago (yep, third baby - can't remember exact details).  I wasn't really looking forward to her first real bath because both of her older sisters had screamed during the process. However, Sage surprised by being calm the whole time, not giving us any reason to change our view that she's our most laid-back baby yet. She's only 2.5 weeks old though, so there's still time for that to change, but we're hoping it doesn't!

And, for fun, here's pictures of the other girl's first baths.  I guess looking back only one of them cried... my memory is already blending together!  Someday when they ask me about what they were like as babies I'm going to have to hope we have stuff on the blog (or in the baby book - though more likely on the blog) because apparently my memory isn't so great.  Anyway, here's the older two - Lise first, then Claire, who cried and apparently colored my memory of first baths.

More Sage please

Sage is almost two weeks old.  The older she gets, the more we think she looks like her older sisters!  What do you all think? (Feel free to browse the old pictures and point out specific 'look-a-like' examples if you have time on your hands!)

She is a very laid back baby, at least so far, even more so than Claire was. Sage sleeps almost all the time, it seems, though the last two days she has been awake a bit more.  She has only cried a handfull of times, sometimes during a diaper change or when she is strapped into her carseat before the seat gets put in the car and the driving starts - that always calms her down.  Otherwise, she fusses occasionally, and grunts and makes other noises like that a lot.  We are enjoying our time with her, and her older sisters give her lots of hugs and make sure she is tucked in on my lap with a blanket whenever we sit down.

Sage Constance!

Sage Constance arrived on Wednesday, Nov. 23rd at 5:40am.  She was 9 lb 4 oz and 21 inches long, and is doing great!!

We just loved the name Sage, and the connection to Thanksgiving was bonus (as was the fact that she was born just in time to allow us to get home from the hospital for Thanksgiving dinner!). A family name in Will's family is 'Conrad' (Will's Grandpa Hoyer's and Will's middle name) and so we wanted to honor that with a similar name for Sage's middle name.

Her older sisters are loving her, and we are all enjoying being home.  Here are a few pictures:

We'll try to post a little bit more frequently as Sage grows up... but with three girls keeping us busy now, who knows how that plan will go!

A couple fun things about the new house...

Seems like about every day the girls are discovering something new and fun about our house.

First of all, there is room for the little potty seat by the big one, which makes for some fun 'parties' in the bathroom for two sisters!

The laundry chute we knew about before moving in, but the girls were excited to discover it and have been very good (so far!) about emptying their dirty clothes basket in their room into the chute:

Just a few days ago it was discovered that the large, side-by-side closets in the hallway made great little houses or hiding places.  Lise consented to have the door open a bit for this picture, but usually she likes it darker and cozier:

Claire has the closet next door: 

It is also fun to have a long hallway to run down and directly into the kitchen...

where you can then dance for Mom and Dad (who are still finishing up dinner)!

Hair

Claire and Lise have been very into having me 'do' their hair in some way lately. And by 'some way' I mean that they tell me exactly what I am supposed to do or do it themselves, not that I can just put whatever in it. Here are a couple pictures (and a few glimpses of the 'new' house):

Claire turns 5!!

I still think it's not right everytime I write or say that my oldest daughter is 5 years old! wow!

She had a good time on her actual birthday. At their daycare/preschool the birthday child gets to mix up a batch of muffins which are baked in the kitchen and then shared with their class, so she enjoyed that special treat!

Then on the weekend we had a very low-key birthday 'party.'  Claire was actually encouraging her sister to help her open her gifts - crazy! They both had lots of fun! 

Halloween

Continuing the blog catch-up project... Here are the girls on halloween.  Lise wouldn't stand still to get a picture of Claire and her together - too excited to go get candy.  The girls were the same things as last year - a dinosaur and a clown.  Next year Lise will have to be something different though, she'll be too big for this costume (from Aunt Jo! :) next year, so it will go back in case Elsie wants to be a scary dinosaur!

After the very first house Lise said, "ok, go home - eat now!" But was convinced to go to another few houses.

a hike in October

We are getting more settled in our new place and Will is almost done painting about every room in the place!  So a bit more time for blogging for a few days...?

These pictures were on our camera so long I had to check the date on the pictures to know when this hike was - Oct. 7th... so yeah, we were a bit behind getting pictures off the camera and on to the blog, just a little.

Will took the girls on this hike and got lots of good pictures - enjoy!

In between boxes...

The last month has been busy for us - selling a house, buying a house, packing everything we own, moving, beginning to paint new house and unpack new house, and getting the girls used to sharing a room together! But (mostly) before that craziness started, we did have time for a few fun things - reading outside on a nice day, running around outside at Mom's work after eating the annual chili feed for homecoming, and a trip to the River Museum. Here are a couple pictures:

No guarentees on writing again for a while... still lots of boxes to unpack before the baby arrives! But I imagine we'll find a second to update the blog once that does happen, so stay tuned for that announcement in the next 3-5 weeks!

Claire and Lise: mid-September 2011