3 month recap and welcome Aylin!

Okay, July 7th was 3 months ago now, but poor Ay-bae can't live her life with no documentation! Here is the 3 month recap, in reverse order. This is a journal of our life for our own future reference, so feel free to just skim through if you are family reading this and don't have all day.

 Aylin is the most wonderful baby. She spends much of the day chillin' in her swing and waiting for you to look at her so she can smile back. Unfortunately Bode this week discovered the concept of picking her up. Fortunately(?) only one of  three of those episodes ended in a clunk on the floor before intervention could happen. We now seat belt her in.

 Lewis Brodegard was born one month after her (on my birthday in fact,) and is already bigger than her. And of course, Stephanie can already run twice as fast and far as I can.  Maybe if i could get myself to work at it a little more regularly...

 Debbie, Oliver and Teddy came to visit for a week, end of Sept/ first of Oct. Owen and Oliver toggled between best buds  (when out of the house) and .......the opposite, (when too long in the house- meaning more than and hour or so.) Of course within moments of Oliver leaving Owen repeatedly asked for him to return. I'm confident that they'll just retain the love emotion when they meetup again for Grandma's camp. they were really pretty cute together. Super fun to have them. We miss them. While here we went to the zoo, biked to playgrounds, ran a 5K, went to Starkey Carnival, played at the cabin.

 Owen started High-five (pre-K) at Windom Spanish Immersion school. It's been great, and he gets to ride the bus- though typically we bike him to school and I cart home his bike in the back of the chariot, then he buses home since the weather is nice. When Owen gets off the bus he usually reports that his day was "tewific" or "incwedible." Very few reports of anything "bisgusting." When you ask what he's learned he count sto 14 in spanish. He really likes his teacher "Soli" (it took us a while he was referring to Senora Solis, his teacher), and loves to report on all the naughty things Maurice does (Maurice for ages was the only classmate name he could remember.) Owen's teacher says that he is really well behaved. At home he still has days, or weeks, of "intensity" (mess making, tantrums,  mischief), but I'm grateful its Maurice that's the trouble maker at school. Ill take what I can get.

James has Mrs VanValkenburg for his first grade teacher. It certainly seems less intense than kindergarten was. James says she doesn't really get "frustrated like Mrs Olson did." They have daily yoga and she plays puff the magic dragon on her guitar. I like that she has them keeping a daily journal, and we aren't supposed to cue them on spelling.

In August we went camping at Interstate State park on the border of Wisconsin and enjoyed the cliffs and potholes.

 

Mom and Dad came out for Aylin's baby blessing. It was so fun to have them, and so nice to have Mom back out just a month after her first visit. We were so sad to have her leave. Going from 3 to 4 kids was brutal for us. 2 to 3 was a breeze, 1 to 2 was rough so I knew anything was possible. I just hadn't expected  Bode and Owen to start fighting so intensly, and while I knew Owen would really adore his baby sister, I thought he would do it more gently. Between Bode biting her and Owen flipping onto her there was no safe place. We could last no more than an hour in the house before I was pulling my hair out. I'm just grateful the weather was nice so we could just travel from one playground to the next most of each day. I don't know what I would have done if Aylin had any needs. She is a dream baby. Luckily we are past that phase now and life is GOOD!

 Again, here's baby Lewis with a size up at the hospital.

 Born 7/7/16. 9lbs 7 oz, 22 inches. Induced 8 days overdue- and nowhere close to coming out on her own. Nice and quick once the pitocin kicked in. Named Aylin Sage. Aylin because it was a name (different spelling) that Randy and I had liked from various encounters, but then we liked even more when realized in this spelling it's also Armenian and Old French. Turkish meaning is 'Halo of the moon', and we figured it'd be a nice celestial tribute to Randy's aunt Starr who just passed from cancer. 'Sage' as a tribute to great grandma Artemisia (like my Sister Sage), and because my sister Sage is a very beautiful and generous person. Pregnancy was rough, the transition of adding a new baby was trying. I'm so glad I didn't know how bad it all would be, or I might have chosen to avoid it and missed out on the incredible blessing of having this angel in our life. Welcome to the world Aylin!