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!