Anders

Okay, it's been over a week so I think I can make the time to blog about our new little boy.  It's pretty sad when my friend Jan, who has 6 kids and takes a million pictures a day can find the time to blog about our boy before I do.  Anders (Ahn-ders) Glenn Fiene was born on October 19, 2010 at 1:13 in the afternoon.  He weighed in at 9 lbs 4 ozs and was 20 3/4 inches long.  While he was a big boy, August still holds the record for my biggest baby.  I was again blessed with a short labor, delivery and recovery for which I am truly thankful.

So, what can I tell you about my sweet little boy?  He loves to eat, he sleeps very well and he has the longest fingers and toes I have ever seen.  He is also our darkest featured kid, which is funny since he has the most Scandinavian name.  The hustle and bustle and all together chaotic nature of our house doesn't seem to faze him.  I love that, for the moment, he sleeps through the loud fits of both of his older brothers.

Some have asked how we came up with the name.  Anders is the Scandinavian form of Andrew which is my brother's middle name.  Glenn is my dad's name and we are all hoping this kid will be as even tempered as my dad.  But I'm not holding my breath.

So, here are some pictures of the day little Anders was born.

 Hans thought it was hilarious that they made me wear this 'fall risk' bracelet.  The nurse asked me if I had fallen during the pregnancy.  Thinking she saw the bruise on my arm and leg (and not wanting her to draw the wrong conclusion) I answered yes.  I tried to explain that the only reason I fell was because a little boy stuck a mop handle between my feet, but that did not persuade her from pulling the bright yellow bracelet out of the drawer and fastening it to my arm.  One of two things will happen next time, I'll lie about falling or I'll ban any cleaning items like brooms and mops in my house for the entire pregnancy.  With three boys and a husband, I'm sure my house will stay immaculate the whole nine months.

Gus loved having his hair washed during his first bath. Anders thought the whole bath experience was highly overrated. 

Hans was so happy to have produced three boys.  Even though he really, really wanted a girl.

The following photos were take by my friend Jan.

I love baby feet.  Baby feet are the only kind of feet I love or even like.  His little heels were pricked every couple of hours for the first day to keep an eye on his blood sugar levels.

Look at all that dark, beautiful hair.

John has been so good with Anders.  After the first few days of completely ignoring Anders, Gus now loves him and tries to pick him up all the time.  This just means that Anders isn't safe anywhere.

We are all just loving our new little man.  I promise to post more pictures of him soon.  But I'm still on 'just had a baby, mother of three boys' time.

1st Day of School

John had his first day of school last week and we were all very excited.  He has only gone a few days, but I just love the school and curriculum and am happy with my decision despite having to drive 25 minutes each way.  He loves his teacher and is learning lots of things and having way too much fun.  I knew the first few weeks were going to be hard as he was going to have to learn simple things like standing in line, waiting his turn and raising his hand, but his teacher is very patient and thinks John is just a hoot.  We grabbed a few shot of him on his first day.  While they aren't very good pictures they are totally John.

John was frustrated with me because I took the picture before he got his jacket zipped.  We are both a little impatient.

Hans, always the good dad, is calming John down after the unzipped jacket picture fiasco.

Now we are all zipped and ready for school!

The Tales of John

While I was researching which Pre-K program to send John to, we did a visit of each center.  I was telling John about school and how one day we would find one and I would drop him off and leave him there with his teacher and then pick him up later in the day.  On our very first visit to a school John thought I was going to leave him and he seemed just fine with that.  He walked right into the classroom, made himself at home and then went up to the director and asked if he could "go check out the playground."  Seriously!?!  The director just smiled and took him outside to check things out.  When I still hadn't left he just looked at me and said, "You told me when I went to school you would leave me here.  Why are you not leaving me here?"  I don't think there will be any problems leaving John anywhere.  This is a long stretch from what he was like when he was 1.  I wonder if my friend Natalie and her husband Dan still have nightmares about the one time they tried to watch him.

John loves going to the store with Hans.  As my brother tells me all the time, we are very inefficient about grocery shopping and end up going to the store almost every day.  I'm sure this will change if we ever live more than 10 minutes from a store.  And, on that note, I wonder how Mark is about grocery shopping now that he has moved out.  How many times a week does he go to the store?  Back to John.  He just loves going to the store...with Hans.  If Hans ever decides to go alone John cries and sulks the whole time Hans is gone.  The other day I decided to go to the store.  I announced that I was leaving and John said, "Wait, wait, where are you going?"  I told him I was going to the store and he said, "Okay, bye, see you later."  I asked him why he always threw a fit to go with his dad, but he didn't ever care about going with me.  To this, my child responded, "I don't know, I just like him.  Do you want me to go with you?"

A Day Out With Thomas

You all knew this was coming, right?  How could we have a Thomas fanatic in our home and not attend the event where Thomas comes to town?  So we bought some tickets and set out early one Saturday morning for the Colorado Railroad Museum, where Thomas was waiting to take kids for a ride.  All we told John was that we had a surprise for him.  He was very excited and kept asking what his surprise was.  When we got to the museum we had to park about half a mile away and a charter bus took us all to the front gates.  John thought the bus ride was his surprise and kept thanking us for the great gift.  Hans had to assure him that we would not drive 30 minutes away from home just to take a short bus ride and that more was in store for him.  Then my little boy saw Thomas' face and was so excited.  He just stared at him for a few minutes...probably not believing his eyes.

Waiting in line to get into the train yard.  John is just staring at Thomas.

There he is.  All set to take the kids on a ride.

John needed a closer look.

Soon  it was time to board the train.  We had a choice to sit in a covered car or in an open car and John wanted to ride in a troublesome truck.

The next series of pictures is what happened while we were waiting for Thomas to get going.  Gus woke up at 5 this particular morning and was not in a tolerable mood.  What am I saying?  No matter how rested these kids are this is what my days are like.

I will say that boys just hit each other and get it over with.  They were both fine after this episode.

Now, back to Thomas...

This was the conductor and he came by to punch everyone's tickets.

Thomas puffing up the track.

After the train ride we walked around the grounds.  There were various stations set up with lots of different activities.  We have all of this stuff at home, but I still had to drag both of the boys out of here.

There was also a small petting zoo.

Caged animals are always trying to get out.

Just so you all know, as I was laughing and taking these pictures I was informing Hans that our kid was climbing the gate.  I do wonder how far up he would have climbed.

Here we were at the roundhouse.  The ropes are blocking off about an 8 foot drop.  This did not deter Gus from trying to go explore.  What a boy.

At the end of the day we got the boys Hobo Lunches.  This was a very cute idea and the boys gobbled them up.

Gus couldn't even wait to get it out of the bandanna.

We all had a wonderful day.  This will be something we will do every year until I no longer have a child infatuated with Thomas.